Harvel faces sentencing

SANDPOINT — Bonner General Health’s disgraced chief financial officer is set to learn her fate on Friday in 1st District Court.

Norilina Salvatierra Harvel faces up to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to grand theft in connection with a string of embezzlements at the hospital between 2012 and 2014. However, a binding plea agreement in the case is recommending a withheld judgment for five years and 90 days of local incarceration.

District Judge Barbara Buchanan declined to bind herself to the agreement until she had a chance to review the results of a presentence investigation. The investigation delves into a defendant’s social and criminal background.

Harvel, 47, lacks a prior criminal record, which qualifies her for a withheld judgment. If Harvel completes her court-ordered obligations, including the payment of $217,075.26 in restitution, her felony conviction would be wiped from her record. However, the criminal charge would remain.

The motive behind the embezzlements has remained unclear throughout the proceedings against Harvel, who had moved on to another job in Colorado when the thefts were discovered.

She waived her right to a preliminary hearing in Bonner County Magistrate Court and has declined to comment on the case.

Hospital officials said they were at a loss to explain Harvel’s misconduct.

They contended that Harvel exploited the high degree of trust that was placed in her to establish a bogus bank account and post office box to aid her financial schemes.

Hospital officials said Harvel purchased a piece of hospital equipment, but sold it to a leasing company and kept the proceeds. Harvel made payments on the lease using misappropriated funds and claimed to have purchased another piece of equipment that was never actually bought, hosptial officials said.

Harvel, who now resides in Washington City, Utah, is free on $50,000 bail while awaiting sentencing.