A former Virginia Beach prosecutor who pleaded guilty in March to embezzling money from crime victims to fund his gambling addiction will not serve jail time.
James Spero Panagis, Jr., 46, was sentenced last week to three years supervised probation along with a five-year suspended sentence. He pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement of greater than $500, two felony counts of uttering a forged check and two felony counts of embezzlement by a public officer.
Panagis was ordered to pay back $1,685 stolen from BJ’s Wholesale and Virginia Beach Risk Management as part of his plea agreement. His charges stem from offenses that occurred from 2019 to 2021.
Panagis began working at the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in 2015 before leaving in 2022 for a job at the law firm Wolcott, Rivers and Gates in Virginia Beach. Following his guilty plea, Panagis was suspended by the Virginia State Bar in April.
Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle asked Virginia State Police to conduct an investigation after discovering “irregularities” in Panagis’ files. The irregularities were found after a victim reported they never received the full amount of restitution owed to them.
Stolle also asked that a special prosecutor be appointed, and the case was assigned to the Chesterfield County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.
Panagis turned himself in after he was charged, and was released on a $10,000 bond.
As part of the investigation, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office audited 600 cases Panagis worked on. State Police First Sergeant A. R. Ashby Jr. compared those records with Panagis’s bank records along with records obtained from 12 online gambling sites.
Ashby testified in March that the records showed Panagis most frequently used BetMGM, and appeared to be gambling “at all hours of the day and night.” In an effort to conceal his crimes, Panagis would ask defense attorneys or the other parties in his cases to give him a check with a blank payee line in exchange for him withdrawing or reducing their charges and would then fill in a fake name that had the initials “J.P.” to match his own, according to Ashby.
He would sign the checks in a way that left only the “J” and “P” legible. He would then deposit the money into his personal account but report that the restitution money had been paid in full, Ashby said.
Prosecutors said Panagis has begun addiction treatment and repaid the money.
Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com