For two decades, she worked for the state helping Florida's neediest. Colleagues considered her a mother figure. Bosses respected her. She got promotions.

No one noticed when Department of Children & Families supervisor Violet Jones started pilfering small chunks of money—no more than $900 at a time—from funds set aside for struggling families. And for three years, she kept tapping into public assistance funds, until she had swiped $1.54 million—enough to help feed 8,810 households for a month.

All of that stealing culminated Thursday in her receiving a 17-year prison sentence for acts described by a judge as unconscionable.

"It's really hard to get beyond how many people she impacted," said Broward Circuit Judge Eileen O'Connor. Jones' attorney argued that the money she stole was to feed a gambling addiction — a shame she kept hidden from even her closest family members. She gambled away almost all the money she took, he said.
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