College Trustee, Wife Convicted of Embezzlement

A county Community College District trustee and his wife were found guilty Tuesday of stealing from the district by padding expense accounts, overestimating mileage and misusing public funds for expensive clothing and fancy dinners.

James T. (Tom) Ely was found guilty on 29 counts of fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy. His wife, Ingrid Ely, was convicted on one count each of conspiracy, grand theft and embezzlement.

Ely could be sentenced up to six years in prison and his wife could receive a three-year term for stealing more than $15,000. Sentencing by Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch will be Aug. 9, after a probation hearing.

After the verdicts, the Elys hurried to the county probation office, where they tried to evade the media. After being followed by about a dozen reporters, James Ely lunged at a newspaper photographer, throwing her camera to the floor and stomping her foot with the heel of one of his cowboy boots.

“I’ve got rights too, you know!” he yelled.

As tears streamed down her face, Ingrid Ely said: “We’re just in shock. We’ve worked so hard (for the district) and this is how we get treated.”

Of the conviction, Ely, his face flushed, said: “I never thought this was a possibility.”

Jury members, interviewed later at a Ventura bar, said they considered each of the counts carefully. They had deliberated the case since Thursday afternoon.

“As I see it,” jury foreman Christopher Darwin said, “they had no defense. They just had excuses. They didn’t say, ‘I didn’t do it.’ All they could say was, ‘I did it because.’ I had a hard time accepting all those excuses.”

Throughout the trial, the Elys’ attorneys argued that everything the couple did was within district guidelines. The attorneys said they never conspired to steal and in some cases made mistakes on expense accounts.

Willard P. Wiksell, Ingrid Ely’s attorney, said he plans to ask for a retrial. “There is just an insufficient amount of evidence” to convict, Wiksell said.

He said the couple’s lives have been destroyed.

“This is a bitter blow,” Wiksell said. “No sentence can come close to the hurt they feel now.”

Darwin said that he felt the Elys “were probably good people. But they started doing this and it worked, so they did it again, and it worked, and the thing snowballed.”

The charges against the couple stemmed from eight trips they made together at district expense between April, 1988, and January, 1990. At one point while in Vancouver, Canada, the Elys spent $290 on sweaters in a gift shop at a hotel where they were staying at district expense.

In Washington, D. C., they charged the Community College District for nine meals in one day and billed the district for a play they attended at the Kennedy Center, prosecutors said.

While at a convention in Las Vegas, the couple was reimbursed for air fare and cabs, even though they had driven their car to the event, according to testimony.

“They were on a roll,” said juror Sarah Lamos.

Times staff writers Gary Gorman and Mack Reed contributed to this story.