Youth Soccer League Treasurer Gets Jail for Fund Embezzlement

Saying a message needs to be sent to others in the public trust, a Vista Superior Court judge Monday sentenced a volunteer treasurer of a North County youth soccer league to 60 days in jail and five years’ probation for embezzling more than $51,000 from the group.

Judge Ronald S. Prager also ordered Paula Archie to repay the money. Over a nine-month period last year, Archie wrote herself 35 to 45 checks on soccer league funds.

The 34-year-old single mother, whose only son was a member of the soccer league, was also ordered to serve six months in the county’s work-furlough program. She could have received a maximum of a year behind bars.

Michael Berg, Archie’s attorney, had requested that his client be sentenced to six months of home custody under the county’s electronic surveillance program, as well as participating in the work-furlough program.

However, Prager said that, though Archie had proven herself a hard-working mother, he believed the amount of money taken called for time in jail.

“It is not the desire of this court to totally destroy her,” he said of Archie.

“Nonetheless, she abused a public trust. And there must be some serious means of punishment so that others in a similar position don’t get the message that they can take money and, as long as they don’t have a prior record, can have an interest-free loan as long as they pay the money back. That is not acceptable.”

Moments before the judge pronounced sentencing, Archie made a last-minute plea for forgiveness from friends, family and soccer league officials, many of whom packed the courtroom.

“I want to apologize to all the people who trusted me for not doing things right,” said the petite Oklahoma native, who now works as an accountant at a firm she founded in Escondido. She recently sold part of her ownership.

“I ask for the opportunity to make it right. And, in the event I make it right, I ask you guys all to forgive me.”

Archie pleaded guilty in December to embezzling $29,191 from the banking accounts of the Escondido-based league, saying she needed the money to pay back taxes on her accounting and tax service.

In February, however, after an audit of the league’s financial accounts, officials revealed that $51,000 had actually been taken. On Monday, Prager ordered that Archie repay that amount, as well as a $3,000 audit fee to assess the soccer league’s finances.

In statements made to the court Monday, Berg portrayed Archie as a hard-working daughter of an alcoholic father, an essentially honest woman who got in over her head in business debts. She had planned to pay the money back before it was noticed by league officials, he said.

“She made a decision to use the funds as a quick fix,” Berg said. “She just didn’t stop it in time.”

Deputy Dist. Atty Bob Sullivan, however, called the youth soccer league a vulnerable victim.

“This was a woman in a position of responsibility,” he said. “In effect, she was stealing from children and stealing substantial sums.”

He questioned the claim that Archie had embezzled the funds to repay debts, saying that the funds “were transferred to her personal account, for personal purposes.”

Sullivan argued that others in the public trust with an opportunity to steal would be watching the results of the case.

“Every year, there’s a new Bobby Sox, Babe Ruth or soccer league that becomes victimized like this,” he said. “The message has to go out to people in a position of trust that, when they caught with their hand in the till, consequences will have to paid.”

In advocating jail time, Sullivan said he questioned the wisdom of allowing Archie to continue working as an accountant in the public trust as a means of paying the money back.

Terry Jones, the newly elected president of the soccer league, told the judge that the children had been forced to go door-to-door to solicit funds to make up for the losses.

“The season will continue,” he said, “but we’re a little under the gun for the 1990 season.”

Lydia Persails, a former registrar for the league, asked the judge to “do something so that other people won’t do this--we need to have a deterrent here.”

On the request of Archie’s attorney, Prager ordered the woman to begin her sentence April 16--so that she could work as a tax preparer through the lucrative income-tax preparation season.