Chicago-area man gets 3 1/2 years for stealing from charity

CHICAGO (AP) — A suburban Chicago man who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $831,000 from a charity he ran for kids with disabilities and spending the money on golf outings, luxury vacations and tickets to NBA games has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison. Forty-five-year-old Stuart Nitzkin pleaded guilty earlier this year to wire fraud for embezzling the money over about five years beginning in 2011 while he worked as the executive director of American Friends of the Israel Sports Center for the Disabled. Nitzkin’s lawyers had asked the court to sentence him to just probation. But during his sentencing hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis told the Deerfield man that he had been motivated by “simple greed.”