Dannible, accused embezzler, facing felony theft charge
NASHUA - A Superior Court judge on Thursday told Shannon Dannible, the Massachusetts educator charged with stealing more than $150,000 from a private Litchfield Catholic school during the four years she served as its principal, that she has run out of opportunities to postpone or continue her case and will be going to trial starting Jan. 4, 2016. Dannible, 38, of Amesbury, Mass., pleaded no contest nearly a year and a half ago to the charge of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer as part of a plea agreement that would send her to prison for anywhere between two and 15 years and order her to pay back the $152,467 she is accused of embezzling from St. Francis of Assisi School between 2007 and 2011. But the agreement never made it before the court, as Dannible and her attorneys filed motion after motion to cancel, postpone or continue nearly a dozen hearings that had been scheduled in Hillsborough County Superior Court South since the agreement was reached. "It's not all that unusual for a defendant to put off his or her day of reckoning by hiring and firing lawyer after lawyer after lawyer," Judge Richard McNamara said Thursday after learning from assistant Attorney General Ben Agati, who is prosecuting the case, that Dannible has had four different attorneys since she was indicted in August 2013. Her most recent attorney, Timothy Harrington of Dover, withdrew from the case effective July 10, after which high-profile Boston attorney Joseph J. Balliro Jr. Dannible, accused embezzler, facing felony theft charge