Absent Couple Sentenced to 4 Years in Embezzlement

A couple who embezzled as much as $150,000 from a San Pedro insurance agency were sentenced to four years in state prison Thursday. They have apparently fled Southern California and did not appear at the sentencing.

Long Beach Superior Court Judge Richard F. Charvat sentenced Georgia and James Mulchaheyto the maximum term and ordered them to pay $10,000 each to the owner of the insurance firm, Bernard O’Neal, under a state government code that orders restitution for certain crimes. “They were not sorry for what they had done, they were just sorry they got caught,” O’Neal said. “The full amount of the loss will never be known, she screwed things up so much with those books.”

O’Neal, 87, said that he was pleased the couple received the maximum sentence but that it could not compensate for the loss to his business or the damage to clients’ trust that he had built up in his 56 years in the insurance business in San Pedro.

The Mulchaheys had pleaded no contest in July to a charge that they embezzled $34,000 from O’Neal’s company, where Georgia Mulchahey worked as a bookkeeper and office manager. She used some of the money to help her husband open a competing San Pedro firm, Marina General Insurance Agency.

Attorneys for O’Neal said they have documented evidence of theft of more than $150,000 from the company.

The Mulchaheys’ attorneys, Henry Salcido and Dennis Carroll, argued that the couple did not deserve the maximum sentence because they had been repentant and had been willing to make some restitution to O’Neal, but were later frightened into fleeing by the prosecutor’s repeated requests that they serve time in prison.

But Charvat said the factors in the couple’s favor, including their plea of no contest, were not enough to outweigh their crime.

“We do have a very serious crime with a very vulnerable victim who has suffered a great loss,” Charvat said.

Private investigator Robert B. Ridley Jr. testified that in trying to find the couple, he found a deed filed with the county recorder’s office indicating that O’Neal had deeded a property on 9th and Gaffey streets in San Pedro, worth as much as $1 million, to James Mulchahey on Sept. 22. The document bore O’Neal’s signature, but O’Neal later testified that it was forged.

Diane Barry, an attorney representing O’Neal in civil proceedings, said she now would seek to recover some of O’Neal’s losses.

Police Detective Steve Wynn testified Thursday that officials in a number of South Bay cities have been notified that the couple is wanted, and authorities have also circulated information as far away as Texas and Homewood, Ala., where the couple’s son lives.