Embezzler Gets 30-Day Term, Fine

A San Fernando Superior Court judge rejected a prosecutor’s plea for a more stringent sentence Tuesday and ordered an insurance broker to spend 30 days in County Jail for embezzling clients’ insurance premiums.

Judge Malcolm Mackey also ordered Gary Martin, 53, of Tujunga to perform 300 hours of community service, imposed a $10,000 fine, ordered him to pay restitution to his victims and avoid working in a capacity in which he would be responsible for other people’s money.

A jury convicted Martin, president of Welmar Insurance Service, Sept. 18 of six felony charges for stealing about $23,000 from three clients who had paid him to buy auto insurance policies. The clients were left without insurance coverage.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen had urged that Martin be sentenced to two years in prison, but Mackey said the community would be better served if Martin worked and paid restitution.

“Sending everyone to jail is not a panacea,” Mackey said. “The punishment must fit the crime.”

Failing Business

Mackey described Martin, who used the money to pay the operating expenses of his ailing insurance company, as a small businessman who got in financial trouble and did not deserve to be punished as if he had set up a business deliberately to defraud people.

But Ipsen said Martin, whose broker’s license previously had been suspended for six months for misusing funds, got off too lightly. The prosecutor said the sentence reflects the court system’s leniency toward white-collar criminals.

“If they appear to be ‘one of us’--white, Anglo-Saxon, educated people--it becomes difficult to send them to state prison,” Ipsen said. “If it were someone not wearing a tie and not wearing a jacket who had stolen similar dollar amounts and shown a similar lack of remorse, there is no way he would have gotten probation.”

No Criminal Record

But the Los Angeles County Probation Department agreed with the judge’s assessment. It had recommended that Martin not be sentenced to state prison, noting that he has no criminal record.

After his conviction, Martin told a county probation officer that he was innocent. He said the theft was planned by his former partner, Clark Wells, who pleaded guilty to two charges of theft in 1987 and was sentenced to three years probation.

Martin was arrested in June, 1987, after a San Fernando businessman tried to add a car to an insurance policy that Martin had been paid to buy. The insurance company notified the businessman that the policy had been canceled for non-payment.