Former Unity House executive secretary Linda Carpenter was sentenced by a federal judge yesterday to 21 months in prison for embezzling more than $127,000 between 1991 and 1995 from the nonprofit labor organization.
Left unnamed during the hearing was the person or people she claimed to have shared the stolen money.
In pleading guilty last year to all 65 embezzlement counts charged, Carpenter, 49, answered "yes" when asked by U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway if others shared in the money or knew about the thefts, prosecutors said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Silverberg had said it might be possible at sentencing to compel Carpenter to identify any others, but the issue was not broached in court yesterday.
Outside of court, Silverberg only would acknowledge that Carpenter said she shared the embezzled money with a senior officer of Unity House who is now dead. He would not confirm that individual as being Roderick "Roddy" Rodriguez, a former Unity House executive director indicted by a federal grand jury last July 27 for allegedly attempting to defraud the organization out of $150,000. Rodriguez killed himself Aug. 8.
Federal sentencing guidelines for Carpenter called for prison terms of between 21 and 27 months. Mollway sentenced Carpenter to concurrent 21-month terms on all 65 counts, as well as five years’ supervised release. She also will have to pay $73,518 restitution to Unity House.
Carpenter had been placed on probation in 1978 on a California embezzlement charge, but her attorney, Stuart Fujioka, said a long time had passed between the charges and his client had a drug problem at the time of the most recent offense. He noted she also had paid back $54,000 to Unity House before the charges were brought.
