PORT ANGELES — Continuing to maintain her silence about a theft of historic proportions, convicted public-funds embezzler Catherine A. Betts was driven to prison late Wednesday morning.
Earlier Wednesday, Clallam County Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor sentenced the former county Treasurer’s Office cashier to 12 years and ordered her to pay $607,516 in restitution for two counts of aggravated first-degree theft, a single count of money-laundering and 19 counts of filing false or fraudulent tax returns on behalf of the county.
That’s the largest amount of restitution ever assigned to the county’s 8-year-old pay-or-appear program, court Administrator Keith Wills said.
Taylor meted out the punishment in an hourlong hearing involving the 47-year-old woman who, her attorney and doctor said, has at least two severe diseases, including cancer.
“This was an enormous theft of public funds,” Taylor said.
“There is nothing mitigating in your favor,” he said.
“The only conclusion I can reach is the motivation in this matter is a case of what I can only describe as world-class greed.”
With Betts sitting in a wheelchair, Taylor addressed her in a courtroom that included about 30 spectators.
“Love you, Cat,” shouted a spectator at the end of the hearing as a deputy wheeled Betts out of the courtroom.
Betts’ attorney, Loren Oakley of Port Angeles, immediately appealed the sentence.
A man Oakley identified as a family member refused to comment about the verdict.
County jail Superintendent Ron Sukert said Betts was transported almost immediately by county jail van to the Washington Corrections Center for Women at Purdy near Gig Harbor.
A Superior Court jury found Betts guilty July 27 of stealing between $617,467 and $793,595 in real estate excise tax proceeds between June 2003 and May 2009 from a single cash drawer.
Oakley, of Clallam-Jefferson Public Defenders, had asked for a 90-day sentence for Betts, whom he said has severe diabetes and nerve damage to her leg that forces her to be “essentially confined to a wheelchair.”
Betts also has breast cancer, according to a doctor’s statement contained in court records.
Betts, who admitted only that she stole a check for $877 from the Treasurer’s Office cash drawer, declined an offer by Taylor to address the court.
“I don’t want to end up in the paper anymore,” she told Taylor.
“I’m fine.”
Betts has never said what happened to the money.
Authorities have never determined the fate of the funds.
Oakley said in an interview that his grounds for appeal include Taylor allowing “improper” expert testimony and allowing statements at trial that Betts made to co-workers May 19, 2009, when the thefts were discovered.
“I am disappointed the court went more toward the state’s recommendation than ours,” he said.
Assistant state Attorney General Scott Marlow had recommended a 15-year sentence.
Betts hid the thefts by recording false check amounts in office records, altering and destroying documents, manipulating office computer spreadsheets, creating hidden passwords and falsifying county records that the Treasurer’s Office submitted to the state Department of Revenue, the state Auditor’s Office said.
The hearing including questioning of Betts by Oakley on her medical condition.
Betts said she takes insulin injections four times daily, has been using a wheelchair for more than two years and is 100 percent disabled.
“I can take a few steps, and that’s about it,” she said.
The state Auditor’s Office had determined at least $617,467 was stolen in what the agency said was the fifth-largest embezzlement of public funds in Washington state since at least 2000.
The restitution Betts was ordered to pay is based on the $597,516 that the county’s insurance company determined was stolen and an additional $10,000 deductible the county paid on its policy to get reimbursed.
The “aggravating circumstances” of Betts’ crimes prompted Taylor to impose 10 years for two first-degree theft convictions and one year each for money laundering and filing false tax returns, Taylor said.
The thefts involved a monetary loss greater than is typical for first-degree theft and a high degree of sophistication or planning, he said.
Of most concern to Taylor was “the breach of trust,” he said.
Taylor also noted Betts never apologized or offered explanations for what she did.
“Each day, you came to work in a position of trust and made a conscious decision to steal money from the Treasurer’s Office,” he said.
“You only stopped when you got caught on that fateful day in 2009.”
Marlow had estimated Betts stole the public funds more than 1,000 times over six years.
Taylor also noted the case was “enormously” expensive to prosecute, incurring almost $9,000 in jury costs alone and “tens of thousands of dollars in investigative expenses on both sides.”
Taylor also told Betts to recall that her boss, former Treasurer Judy Scott, also was “severely punished” by losing her job.
Scott ran for re-election in November and was defeated by Selinda Barkhuis, whose campaign was based on taking Scott to task for the thefts.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
