Former Soccer Treasurer Pleads Guilty to Theft

Paula Archie, the former treasurer of the Escondido-based North County Youth Soccer Assn., pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of grand theft, admitting she took $29,191 from the organization’s bank accounts--money that was needed, she said, to pay back taxes on her accounting and tax service.

Archie, 34, has since sold the business, and she promised Vista Municipal Judge Suzanne Knauf that she will repay the money to the soccer organization within two years. She said she has already paid $10,000 to the group.

In exchange for her guilty plea, the district attorney’s office agreed to drop 20 other felony counts of forgery.

Although Archie could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in state prison, the prosecutor said he does not object to her serving a year or less in County Jail.

Archie’s attorney, Michael Berg, said he hopes his client will not face any time in custody when she is sentenced Feb. 6 in Vista Superior Court. The county Probation Department, after interviewing Archie, will make its own sentencing recommendation.

“We’re extremely happy with the outcome,” Berg said after Wednesday’s court appearance. “The next hurdle is to avoid jail custody.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard McCue told Knauf that he had discussed the plea with directors of the soccer organization, and that “they’re satisfied this is an appropriate outcome of the case.”

Later, McCue said he agreed to the plea because all 22 counts were related to one “continuing course of conduct and could be regarded as one crime.” Furthermore, he said, Archie pleaded guilty to the most serious of the charges, and her sentence would not be appreciably different if she were found guilty of all the counts.

“This is an appropriate disposition for this sort of case. She admitted her culpability early on,” McCue said. “If we had felt she was a particularly malicious person, we would have acted different. In this business, we see different levels of bad. A lot of people just see a black hat, and we can see distinctions within that black.

“Still, she had an impact on a lot of innocent people. She needs to make good that loss, and she will be branded as a felon, which she is.”

When Knauf asked Archie to explain, in her own words, what crime she had committed, Archie, tearful and barely audible, answered, “I took money from the soccer league without the permission of the directors.” Previously, Archie said she had hoped to return the money to the league’s bank account before it was missed.

Knauf told Archie that, if an audit--three weeks away from completion--shows that she took more than $29,191, she will have to repay that as well. Archie agreed.

Outside the courtroom, Archie, whose 10-year-old son played in the soccer league along with 1,800 other youngsters, said the incident “will always haunt me. The support I’ve received from friends and business associates is the only thing that has kept me going.”

Despite earlier speculation by investigators that Archie also might have taken cash from the organization--proceeds from snack bar sales--she said Wednesday that she stole no cash and took only money from the organization’s bank account, by forging another director’s name on checks that she then deposited into her own accounts.

Archie had initiated the sale of her Escondido business during the time she took the money, mostly during this past fall, Berg said. Archie is to receive $10,000 every November for several years from the sale, and those payments are what she is turning over to the soccer organization, he said. Between the annual reimbursements to the group, she will pay it $300 a month.

Volunteer directors of the soccer league discovered the shortage last month when a check bounced and their bank notified them that there were no more funds in the account to pay referees and cover other expenses.

Two years ago, the then-president of the Fallbrook Youth Soccer Program, Joe McDowell, pleaded guilty after being accused of stealing about $21,000 in candy sale fund-raising proceeds. The money was alleged to have been gambled away on horse races.