Westmoreland register of wills meets deadline, pays $422,000 into county treasury

More than $422,000 from court fees collected by the Westmoreland County Register of Wills Office was turned over Thursday to the county treasury.

Treasurer Jared Squires confirmed the embattled row office met a court-ordered, afternoon deadline to turn over funds it received from routine office filings since the start of the year.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Harry Smail Jr. last month ordered the office that oversees records of adoptions, guardianships, wills, estates and marriage licenses to pay all outstanding funds that historically have been submitted monthly to the county treasury but had been delinquent since the end of 2023.

The register of wills office last year collected about $1.7 million that was used for general county operations. Those funds were generated through fees assessed on documents filed in the office.

Controller Jeffrey Balzer said last month the register of wills had made no payments for money collected this year.

The judge set a deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday for the office to settle its accounting with the county and turn over the money that had been collected through the end of April.

“She’s effectively all caught up,” Balzer said Thursday afternoon, referring to Register of Wills Sherry Magretti Hamilton. “We want May (collections), which are technically due now, but we can’t look gift horses in the mouth.”

The register’s office made four separate payments: $110,886 for January; $98,677 for February; $107,976 from March; and $104,509 to reflect collections in April.

The payments came just days before Magretti Hamilton is scheduled to appear before Smail and Judge Jim Silvis to be sentenced for three contempt of court violations. The judges last month found Hamilton in contempt of court for violating two court orders that required her office meet specific deadlines to complete overdue work and other routine office functions.

Witnesses said Hamilton had neglected her duties and faced a backlog in processing adoption certificates and appeals dating to 2019.

She has served as the elected register of wills since 2016. She was unopposed when she was reelected to a third term in office last November.

As part of the contempt of court finding, the judges temporarily stripped Hamilton of the authority to run the register of wills office and appointed Greensburg lawyer Jim Antoniono to serve as conservator.

Antoniono took over stewardship of the office June 3, which essentially led to Hamilton’s demotion and for her to serve as an office employee while she continues to draw her nearly $90,000 annual salary as an elected official.

Her sentencing hearing is set for Monday, when she faces potential jail time and fines of up to $5,000 for each offense.

Hamilton announced this week she would retire from politics when her term expires at the end of 2027. She vowed to remain in office through the end of her term.