Convicted embezzler gets 18 months; judge denies monitor request

PALMER — Although she’ll likely spend most of her prison term on an ankle monitor, attorneys in the case of an embezzling bookkeeper said prison time wasn’t really the point.

The point was that she pay restitution — $60,433.21.

Tina Denton, 42, was arrested in September 2008 and charged with theft, fraud and embezzlement. She admitted, first to Wasilla police and then to the judge, to writing herself double paychecks from the Kainer Electric account and then erasing one of the checks from the company’s books. Though Denton pleaded guilty to theft, the case took quite awhile to resolve because there was a dispute over exactly how much she stole. Denton said $60,000 or so. Kainer Electric owner Ben Kainer said it was much more.

And there were questions that were hard to resolve. In addition to those double checks, did she also pad her timesheets? When a customer paid in cash, did she sometimes pocket that money?

“There’s no way you can figure it out. I don’t know how many hours she worked,” said Raylene Kainer, Ben’s wife and half-owner of the company. As for the cash contracts, “You’d have to find every contractor you worked for. Every single individual.”

But prior to Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, everyone agreed on a figure of just over $60,000. The only thing left to sort out was how much time Denton should spend in prison. Or, if the Department of Corrections approved an ankle monitor.

Denton’s attorney, Chadwick McGrady, said his client should be considered among the least serious of offenders. He said the theft charge she pleaded guilty to required that she stole more than $25,000. Which, he said, means that it would be the same charge someone like Bernie Madoff would face if he committed his multi-billion dollar theft in Alaska.

“When someone doesn’t have a prior felony and the fact that Theft I could be anywhere up to $50 billion, it’s least serious,” McGrady said.

McGrady asked for a one-year sentence and a “suspended imposition of sentence,” which would have the conviction erased from Denton’s record if she proved she could be a law-abiding citizen.

Prosecutor Trina Sears disagreed and asked for an 18-month term with no suspended imposition of sentence.

“This is probably the most serious theft case you’ve seen in years,” she told Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler, who was at the courthouse on a temporary basis to hear the case despite her retirement.

“This is a small business that really suffered a great deal,” Sears said. “She didn’t just steal, but she covered it up with the business records.”

Carrol Eubanks, whose husband worked for Kainer Electric, sided with Sears, saying Denton had ruined the company.

“She’s still got a home. I don’t,” Eubanks said. “I spent three years making payments on a home that I lost because of Tina Denton.”

For her part, Denton said she understood how much the Kainers had suffered, but she wanted to set some things straight.

The company, she said, was in dire straights from the day she started working there. She didn’t make them go bankrupt, she said. Unlike what was alleged previously, she never got her brother to make Kainer re-do some work he did in Kenai.

“I’m very sorry that we’re here today and I’m trying very hard to be a good person,” Denton said.

Cutler, for her part, basically sided with Sears on every point. She said the 18- month sentence was appropriate since it’s between the maximum and the minimum allowed for the offense. Denton’s case, she said, constituted a middle-of-the-road felony theft.

As for the suspended imposition of sentence, Cutler said she felt Denton needed this conviction on her record.

“Every employer should be able to know about this,” she said.

McGrady asked that Denton be given two weeks before she be made to report to prison. That, he said, would give her time to apply for the ankle-monitor program. Cutler disagreed with him there as well, ordering her to report there on Friday.

“For her to be remanded to jail two days from now, 48 hours from now, is entirely appropriate,” she said. Prison, she said, generally makes a person “realize being on house arrest is a privilege.”

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