Judge balks at theft case sentence

SANDPOINT — A 90-day jail sentence for stealing over a quarter million dollars failed to add up in the mind of 1st District Judge Steve Verby on Friday.

Verby postponed a Kootenai woman’s sentencing hearing for embezzling from Coldwater Creek and the Panhandle Alliance For Education after advising her he would not adopt recommended sentence.

Susan Alene Hopkins, a former executive assistant at Coldwater Creek, is accused of using a corporate credit card to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses over a four-year period ending in 2010. She was further accused of misappropriating the funds of PAFE, a nonprofit which supports the Lake Pend Oreille School District.

Originally charged with two counts of grand theft, Hopkins entered into a plea agreement last year that dismissed one count in exchange for an admission of guilt on the other.

Hopkins, 54, also agreed to pay $251,943 in restitution as part of the agreement, which recommended a suspended prison term of three to 10 years and a custodial sentence of 90 days at the Bonner County Jail.

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The sentence recommendations, however, were not binding upon the court and Verby made it clear he would not implement them.

“In this instance, we have an extremely serious series of offenses and local jail (time) does not appear to me to be an appropriate option,” he said.

Verby referred to a recent Boundary County embezzlement case in which a woman was convicted of grand theft for stealing $130,000 from the Selkirk International Loop tourism group. A plea agreement in that case recommended a 180-day sentence with a suspended underlying prison term.

But Verby declined to adopt the sentence recommendation last January and ordered Jennifer Jeanine Watts to serve one to six years in prison due to the seriousness and extended duration of the misconduct.

Watts, 40, is imprisoned at the Pocatello Woman’s Correctional Center, according to the Idaho Department of Correction.

Verby continued the hearing so Hopkins could review her options.

Hopkins’ attorney, Chief Public Defender Isabella Robertson, expressed doubts that her client had legal grounds to withdraw her guilty plea. Deputy Prosecutor Larry Goins said he would object if Hopkins tried to unwind her plea.

A new hearing date in the case is pending.

Verby noted there has been a cluster of embezzlement cases in the last couple of years, which he attributed partially to the bleak economy and partially to greed.

“An old-time folk singer, Woody Guthrie, in his song ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ said, ‘Some rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen.’ If she did these offenses and if she did incur $250,000 of the charges, she would be engaging in embezzlement not with a fountain pen but with a credit card,” said Verby.