April Kelley cries after receiving a 3-year prison sentence in Lewis County Superior Court Thursday.
When handing down a sentence for a former Lewis County employee convicted of stealing more than $150,000 in taxpayer money over four years, Superior Court Judge Andrew Toynbee said he was faced with reconciling a “vast gulf” between his options.
April K. Kelley, 35, of Centralia, pleaded guilty last month to eight counts of first-degree theft, admitting to taking more than $5,000 on eight separate occasions between 2010 and 2014.
As a first-time offender, she could have faced as little as 0 to 90 days in jail, which is the sentence attorney Shane O’Rourke requested on his client’s behalf.
He also had the option to sentence Kelley to the standard sentencing range given her offenses and criminal history — 22 to 29 months.
“A 90-day sentence just does not do justice in a case like this,” Toynbee said.
On the other hand, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer asked for a sentence of 10 years, and state law allowed Toynbee to sentence Kelley to as much as 80 years — 10 years for each count of first-degree theft.
“To come up with an approach to even put a number to this crime is difficult,” Toynbee said.
In the end, the judge chose the middle ground — 36 months, or three years — saying he took into account Kelley’s willingness to plead guilty and her cooperation with the investigation, as well as the well-being of her children while she is in custody.
“My apology will never be over and I will never stop trying to right my wrongs,” said an emotional Kelley during her hearing Wednesday. “ … I wake up every morning shocked that it happened.”
Kelley was arrested and charged in September with multiple counts of theft and forgery after an investigation revealed as much as $90,000 taken from the account of the Association of County Health Services, a state organization of county public health departments. Kelley worked at Lewis County Public Health and was the ACHS treasurer from 2010 to 2014.
Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said at Kelley’s guilty plea hearing in January that the total amount stolen was estimated to be nearly $200,000.
“Ms. Kelley stole from every single taxpayer in the state of Washington,” Meyer said Wednesday. “In one year the defendant stole 93 percent of (ACHS’s) income.”
Kelley reportedly paid $49,000 back to ACHS during the period in which she was stealing from its account, and repaid another $10,000 toward her restitution on Tuesday.
She will be required to pay back another $132,197.80, plus another $5,000 for the cost for an expert to restore ACHS’s books.
Meyer said he asked for the high sentence partly because Kelley didn’t steal because she or someone in her family was ill or in genuine need, but stole to enrich her own life. Such purchases include more than $1,000 in tickets to events and shopping trips in Las Vegas and California.
“She spent it on lavish things that she certainly wasn’t willing to work for,” he said. “She wanted to live a lifestyle that she wasn’t willing to work to get.”
Meyer noted that Kelley was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during the period of the thefts, and said he believed it was a serious condition, but not an excuse for the thefts. He also noted that Kelley stole from an organization that helps other people with mental health needs.
O’Rourke painted a more sympathetic image of his client — one of a woman who got in over her head, regretted her actions and didn’t know how to correct them. However, he there is no good explanation for why she took the money in the first place.
“That’s why we stand here today. That’s the bottom line,” he said. “She’s saying sorry because she is sorry this happened. She is offering her apologies to the community and to the court”
O’Rourke said 10 years is clearly excessive given the facts of the case, and asked for either a first-time offender sentence or a sentence in the standard range.
“The fact is that in this case, there is no loss of life, there is no violence … “ he said. “Ultimately we’re dealing here with a property crime and that has to be taken into consideration.”
Dozens of Kelley’s friends, family members and supporters packed the courtroom for her sentencing hearing Wednesday afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court, many of whom cried after the sentence was issued. A number of supporters wrote letters to the court asking for leniency in Kelley’s sentence.
“I don’t reject the support she has, but what that shows is what a good person Ms. Kelley is,” Toynbee said, adding that sentences are not based on whether or not a person is considered good or bad by their peers.
“People are sentenced based on their actions … not their value in the community’s eyes,” he said.
Toynbee discussed his thoughts on sentencing in the case, including several calculations of a possible sentence based on how much Kelley stole over a set time period, and how much she stole per charge, taking into account her cooperation and other issues. He drew on his experiences as a prosecutor and lessons from mentors over the years.
“In summary, considering the nature extent and duration of the criminal conduct, the effect of the criminal conduct on the community, on those people who should have been served but were not because of these thefts, on innocent parties that were affected by this … I’m sentencing you, Ms. Kelley, to 36 months in the Department of Corrections.”
