Attorneys for Elys to Be Paid With Public Funds, Judge Rules

James T. (Tom) and Ingrid Ely’s attorneys will be paid with public funds in the Elys’ upcoming trial on conspiracy and embezzlement charges, a Ventura County Superior Court judge decided Wednesday.

The Ventura Community College District trustee and his wife, who filed for bankruptcy in federal court in Los Angeles last month, asked for a court-appointed attorney last week because they said they could no longer afford to pay their attorneys.

Judge Lawrence Storch named the two attorneys--James M. Farley and Willard Wiksell--the Elys were retaining to represent them at public cost through the rest of their case. The attorneys are members of a lawyers’ group called Conflict Defense Associates, which represents indigent clients by court appointment.

Farley said that the appointment is effective as of Wednesday and that the Elys are responsible for any legal costs in the case before that date.

The Elys then pleaded not guilty to a variety of charges arising from their district expense accounts, which they allegedly padded with more than $15,000 in improper claims for food, travel and lodging between July, 1988, and January, 1990.

The Elys pleaded not guilty to two counts each of conspiracy to commit grand theft, Tom Ely pleaded not guilty to eight counts of embezzlement and 19 counts of making fraudulent claims and Ingrid Ely pleaded not guilty to one count of grand theft by embezzlement.

The trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 14. That will allow Tom Ely to recover from back surgery scheduled for mid-November, Farley said. Ely said in a recent interview that doctors must insert a brass plate into his back to repair a spinal injury that he received in a January, 1989, car accident.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson said she expects the Elys’ trial to take at least three weeks, but Farley said he believed that the trial would last four to six weeks.