By Amy Augustine
Concord Monitor
NEW HAMPSHIRE — A terminally ill Deering woman who embezzled about $1.6 million from Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center will serve two years in federal prison and be released to the care of her family should her condition take a turn for the worse, a judge decided yesterday.
Linda Bevins, 53, pleaded guilty in July to stealing the money over a three-year period from 2004 to 2007 while working as payroll supervisor for the Greenfield nonprofit organization, which provides rehabilitative services to children and adults with mental and physical disabilities. Bevins diverted about $1.6 million from the center’s payroll system into funds for herself and her family members.
The court’s dilemma, said U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro, was in handing down a sentence that addressed both the “extraordinary seriousness” of Bevins’s crime and her grave prognosis. Bevins, who is in remission for bowel cancer, received the diagnosis in 1999 and has lived past her life expectancy of seven years.
“She has definitely lived beyond her life expectancy and is probably going to suffer a recurrence of her cancer,” Barbadoro said of Bevins. “She’s likely to die in prison.”
In the courtroom yesterday, a gray-haired Bevins walked slowly and appeared fatigued as she smiled and hugged family before the hearing. Her public defender, Bjorn Lange, told Barbadoro when he visited Bevins before the trial that she appeared to be in a disoriented, “almost catatonic” state. Bevins is prescribed various painkillers for her illness, she said yesterday.
Barbadoro said it was common for defendants to be afraid and anxious before sentencing and asked Bevins whether she understood what was happening.
“I’m just scared,” Bevins said. “I think I’m just scared to death.”
Barbadoro spoke candidly about the struggle in sentencing Bevins and expressed disappointment that Crotched Mountain President Donald Shumway was not present for the hearing, saying he was “quite displeased” that the victim would not engage in a dialogue about Bevins’s fate.
“People want to advocate responsibility. They want to appear to be tough but not stand up,” Barbadoro said.
Michael Redmond, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Crotched Mountain, said in a telephone message yesterday afternoon that the organization had no comment on the sentence.
While Barbadoro said he didn’t want Bevins to “suffer more than she ought to” for the crime, he did not want to take away from the seriousness of it - nor that she may have used her illness to facilitate the thefts.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Zuckerman said Bevins had suffered from cancer for years before she began stealing and perhaps thought she would die before being held accountable for her actions.
“Even if you’re ill, that does not exempt you from the laws of a civil and democratic society,” he said.
When asked if she would like to address the court, Bevins said she worried about receiving adequate treatment in prison.
“I don’t understand. You know I have cancer,” Bevins said, throwing her arms in the air. “If I stop getting treatment, (the cancer) will start growing again.”
Barbadoro said that if Bevins’s health deteriorates to the point of “terminal recurrence,” she will be returned to her family as part of a “compassionate release” program. In addition to the two-year sentence, the court ordered Bevins pay $1.6 million in restitution and be supervised for three years upon her release. She faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $3.3 million.
Bevins is free to spend the next three weeks with her family before she surrenders herself to authorities Nov. 13.
After the hearing, Bevins’s son, Michael, said although he believed keeping his mother under house arrest would have been more suitable, he was “appreciative of the judge’s empathy.”
“She’s remorseful for what she did,” Michael Bevins said. “She put herself under house arrest and has been pretty miserable since it happened. This is kind of a weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders.”
Copyright 2009 Concord Monitor