1 year for car wash embezzler

PALMER — For stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a local car wash, Steven D. Berry will serve a year in prison, a judge ruled Tuesday.

“I just would like to say that I feel badly that the case has taken so long and other than that my attorney, James Wendt, has spoken for me,” Berry said in a brief statement at Tuesday’s hearing.

Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen said she believed that deterring Berry and others from these kinds of crimes and displaying society’s condemnation of them were stronger factors in crafting a sentence than was Berry’s rehabilitation.

She noted that Berry continued to assert his innocence.

“Without any acceptance of his role in this theft there is little possibility for rehabilitation,” Kristiansen said.

Berry was convicted at trial of stealing from Mudbusters Car Wash over the course of years as an employee. A lot of the money he stole came in the form of dollar coins he removed from car wash machines and deposited in his own accounts. In 2008, the business took in $9,318 in change from the machine. In 2009, after Berry was fired, that number was $25,819.

The case included strange evidence, like the survival room Berry built in his house and $100,000 in dollar coins stashed there. There was also some question as to whether the home should be forfeited and how. It was built on land that doesn’t belong to Berry. A forensic accountant hired by the Mahoy family that owns Mudbusters estimated the amount he stole at more than $400,000.

“He stole from the Mahoys in every way,” Kristiansen said, noting that in addition to taking the coins, Berry would falsify his timecards.

Kristiansen’s sentence was actually a three-year term, but two years were suspended. Berry will have to serve them only if he messes up while out on parole. Kristiansen said that by law, the sentence had to be between one and three years.

“The court doesn’t have any ability to sentence greater or less in this instance, given the circumstances,” she said.

In addition, she ordered him to pay $284,684 in restitution. Kristiansen arrived at that figure by adding the $100,000 in dollar coins Berry kept in his house to the $184,684 accountants were able to show he made in deposits to his own accounts with Mahoys’ money.

The sentencing hearing actually stretched over three days, but by the time it reached a conclusion Tuesday the only arguing lawyers did was over when Berry should begin serving his sentence.

Wendt pointed out that Berry was on the verge of a trial in a very contentious divorce set for March, proceedings for which have consumed him recently. He asked his client be ordered to report to jail after that trial. Prosecutor Brittany Dunlop disagreed.

“Knowing that he was subject to a presumptive one to three year term, Mr. Berry should have been ready to remand today,” she said.

Kristiansen sided with Dunlop, saying that if defendants are allowed to pick the date on which they report to jail, “essentially there’s less of a deterrent effect, in my opinion.”

Berry turned himself in to begin serving his sentence on Wednesday.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.