Promoter of Car Sent to Prison for Embezzlement of $2 Million

A former Encino resident who fled prosecution eight years ago has been sentenced to state prison for embezzling more than $2 million that he raised to market a three-wheeled car, which was never manufactured.

G. Elizabeth Carmichael, 51, is expected to serve about 4 1/2 years of a 2-to-20-year sentence imposed Friday by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz, said his attorney, Joseph Shemaria.

Carmichael, who considers himself a woman although he discontinued a sex change operation and remains biologically male, was sent to the men’s prison system, but hopes to be placed in a special facility for transvestites, Shemaria said.

Carmichael was convicted in 1977 on grand theft, corporate securities fraud and conspiracy charges, Shemaria said. The charges stemmed from Carmichael’s operation of the now-defunct 20th Century Motor Car Corp. in Encino.

Carmichael appealed the conviction, which was later upheld, and fled while facing imposition of the same sentence, Shemaria said. He was arrested April 20 in Texas.

Prosecutors charged that Carmichael embezzled investments in the Dale car, which Carmichael claimed could travel 70 m.p.h. using an electric elevator engine, Shemaria said. Three prototypes were built, but the car was never marketed.

Shemaria said his client had “a good-faith belief in the product and an honest belief that the cars would be made and delivered. It was an unrealistic belief, however.”