Anne Arundel Register of Wills pleads guilty to misconduct in office

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in Annapolis. File photo by Bryan P. Sears.

The Anne Arundel County Register of Wills faces the possibility of being removed from office after pleading guilty Tuesday to misconduct in office.

Erica Griswold, 51, was charged in January with cashing a $6,645 check intended to pay estate taxes. She is scheduled to be sentenced July 18 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.

“The sentence that the state will be requesting is 18 months suspended incarceration with three years of supervised probation,” Mary Setzer, senior assistant prosecutor for the Office of the State Prosecutor, said during Tuesday’s hearing.

Prosecutors also asked for 50 hours of community service to be completed within one year of the date of the plea.

The maximum sentence for misconduct in office, a misdemeanor, is “anything not cruel or unusual.”

“Our intent is to have all the community service completed by the 18th because the state indicated it would not oppose the probation being unsupervised if the community service is finished,” Peter O’Neill, Griswold’s attorney, told Circuit Judge Stacy W. McCormack. “There is no restitution, to be clear. That’s been satisfied.”

If Griswold completes the community service prior to her sentencing, prosecutors agreed not to oppose unsupervised probation. Griswold can also ask the judge for a lesser sentence including probation before judgment.

“There’s no guarantee as to the PBJ,” McCormack said before Griswold she entered her plea. “There’s no guarantee that I won’t give the PBJ.”

O’Neill said he plans to offer “substantial mitigation” on behalf of Griswold at sentencing.

Griswold spoke only to give short answers as O’Neill and McCormack ran through a list of questions required to accept her plea. During those questions, O’Neill reminded his client of the potential loss of her job due to her guilty plea.

“This is a matter that we’ve discussed at great length, that this guilty plea could result in your termination or suspension from your current position as register of wills for Anne Arundel County,” O’Neill said. “You understand that?”

There was a short pause before Griswold said softly: “Yes.”

“Even if you’re granted probation before judgment, you still could be terminated from that position,” O’Neill continued. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” said Griswold.

The embattled public official offered no additional comments.

Both Griswold and prosecutors declined to comment after the plea hearing.

Griswold was charged in January with three counts related to the alleged theft of an inheritance tax payment. The charges included misconduct in office; theft by a fiduciary; and theft of more than $1,500 and less than $25,000.

Griswold was elected in November 2022 and sworn in a month later as register of wills for Anne Arundel County, a position that pays more than $146,000 annually.

The office is a state agency responsible for overseeing estates and ensuring proper taxes are collected. Tax payments to the office are typically made out to either the office or in the name of the register of wills.

On June 16, 2022, a beneficiary of an estate sent a $6,645 check to Griswold’s office. The check, meant as payment of estate taxes, arrived without a copy of an official invoice, according to prosecutors, reading Tuesday from a statement of facts agreed to by Griswold.

Prosecutors said an employee in the office brought the check to Griswold, asking for additional information because there was no accompanying invoice. Instead of initiating a search of office records to link the payment to the estate, Griswold told the employee that she had been expecting the check.

Prosecutors said “based on Griswold’s false representation, the employee allowed Griswold to keep possession of the check. Griswold did not know the remitter of the check, and she knew the check was not intended for her personal use.”

Six days later, Griswold cashed the check at Chase Bank on Forest Drive in Annapolis “and kept the cash for her personal use,” according to the statement of facts.

The person who mailed the check, who was not identified by prosecutors, continued to receive invoices from Griswold’s office. On Aug. 4, prosecutors said that person contacted the office and said that the inheritance tax had been paid by a check mailed to the office.

Prosecutors said several office employees spoke to Griswold over several months about repaying the money. “One employee even offered to help Griswold repay the money,” according to the statement read in court.

Griswold repeatedly refused to repay the money even after she learned of an open investigation into the incident and the seizure of her personal and work cell phones and computer.

“A search of Griswold’s personal cell phone revealed that close in time to cashing the check, she had conducted numerous internet searches for the name of the remitter of the check, evidencing that Griswold did not know this individual and was aware that the check received at the ROW office was not intended for her personally,” according to the statement of facts to which Griswold pleaded guilty.

Griswold repaid the $6,645 on Feb. 23, 2023, about one month after criminal charges were filed, the statement said.

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