A former detective in the Butler County District Attorney's Office wants to change his guilty plea to federal charges of filing a false loan application and filing a false income tax return, according to recent court filings.

His wife, the former chief operating officer at Butler Health System, meanwhile, wants her sentencing pushed back in connection with her guilty plea to mail fraud and filing a false return.

In April 2019, Scott Roskovski and his wife, Stephanie, were charged with embezzling $1.3 million from BHS. The Center Township couple was accused of defrauding the health care system between 2011 and 2017, while Stephanie Roskovski was employed as chief operating officer at the facility.

In May 2020, both defendants pleaded guilty in federal court in Pittsburgh to the charges in connection with the investigation conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

But in a motion filed Jan. 12 before U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV of the Western District of Pennsylvania, Scott Roskovski asked to have his plea withdrawn.

“Mr. Roskovski asks to withdraw his plea, assert his right to a jury trial and challenge the evidence on which the government's indictment is grounded because he does not believe that the facts he is prepared to admit constitute the offense(s) charged,” according to the motion by his attorney, Michael Comber of the Pittsburgh firm of Reisinger Comber & Miller.

Referring to the offense of making a false statement in a loan application, Comber wrote that the charge arises out of a business mortgage application in which his wife's salary is alleged to have been misreported because of a job change a few weeks before the application was submitted.

“To be guilty of this offense,” the motion said, “it must be true that Mr. Roskovski had knowledge that the statement of salary was false when it was made, and that the statement was made 'for the purpose of influencing' the lender.”

For the other charge, Comber wrote that filing a false income tax return arises out of allegedly unreported fringe benefit income from his wife's employment, and business expenses he claimed as deductions that the government does not believe qualified as deductions.

“To be guilty of this offense, Mr. Roskovski must have subscribed to a false tax return 'willfully,'” the motion said, “meaning he must have 'voluntarily and intentionally' violated a duty to report fringe benefits or not claim business expense deductions.”

Comber, saying that he did not want to disclose too much of his client's defense, wrote that Scott Roskovski “does not believe that, under the full circumstances, he meets these essential elements, nor is he prepared to admit that his state of mind 'constitute(d) the offense(s) charged.'

“Under such circumstances,” the motion said, “Mr. Roskovski should be permitted to exercise his privilege of withdrawing his plea.”

As part of Scott Roskovski's plea agreement, he is facing 24 to 30 months in prison, and restitution to the IRS of at least $250,001 and no more than $500,000.

While federal prosecutors oppose the motion, according to court filings, they agreed to the postponement of Roskovski's previous sentencing deadlines to allow the motion to be heard. His sentencing hearing was previously scheduled Jan. 27.

Neither Comber nor Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Bloch, who is prosecuting the case against the Roskovskis, could be reached for comment on Monday.

In a motion filed Jan. 12, Stephanie Roskovski asked for a continuance of her sentencing hearing that is scheduled Feb. 2. She is facing more than four years in prison and potentially more than $2 million in combined fines, fees and restitution as part of her plea deal.

She is seeking a delay to allow counsel for the parties “to continue their dialogue in advance of the sentencing hearing,” her attorney, Brandon Verdream of Pittsburgh, said in his motion.

“Mrs. Roskovski also requests that the sentencing hearing occur in-person,” Verdream wrote, “and submits that rescheduling of the hearing may help alleviate COVID concerns.”

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, federal courts are offering defendants the opportunity to receive their sentences through video and teleconference.

But some defendants have declined that option and have asked for in-person appearances, which were previously suspended. The court has already granted at least two other requests by the Roskovskis to have their sentencing continued.

Verdream could not be reached for comment on Monday.

According to prosecutors, from April 2011 through December 2017, Stephanie Roskovski, while serving as chief operating officer of BHS, is accused of using her corporate credit card to make personal purchases that she disguised as business expenses.

She also allegedly submitted falsified reimbursement requests claiming purchases she made on a personal credit card were for business, and obtained hundreds of merchant gift cards worth more than $350,000, falsely claiming they were for distribution to “focus groups” or physicians, and which she used for personal purposes.

During that time, she and her husband, then a county detective, are accused of spending most of the allegedly stolen funds on lavish vacations, home renovations and the purchase and operation of a motocross track, “Switchback MX LLC,” in Clay Township.

According to the summary of allegations, the defendants failed to report the fraud proceeds as income on their annual income tax returns jointly filed with the IRS, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Additionally, after the couple lost their respective jobs, the defendants submitted a materially false loan application to S&T Bank to refinance the Switchback business and to purchase a bulldozer. S&T Bank extended two loans, the first for $1,128,227 and the second for $55,384, based upon the false information.

Authorities said the court was advised that the total loss resulting from the mail fraud scheme perpetrated against BHS is approximately $1,331,884, and the total tax loss to the IRS is approximately $397,342.