Ex-Slemons Manager Charged in Theft Case

The former general manager of Jim Slemons Imports was arrested Friday on charges that he diverted more than $60,000 from an employees’ compensation fund and insurance plans last year at the now-defunct dealership, police said.

Malcolm Charles McCassy, 49, of San Juan Capistrano was arrested about 11 a.m. on suspicion of four counts of grand theft, police said. He was taken to Newport Beach City Jail, where he posted $10,000 bail about 2 p.m., said Lt. Tim Newman.

McCassy, who is now a co-owner of a Costa Mesa auto dealership, is accused of diverting $61,219 from a deferred compensation fund and three insurance plans of 103 Jim Slemons employees during June and July, 1991, Newman said.

Jim Slemons--a flamboyant Newport Beach social figure--placed his dealership under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors last August.

Slemons has since sold his last Southland auto dealership, once ranked as the nation’s eighth-largest.

McCassy, as general manager, handled day-to-day responsibilities of the Newport Beach dealership. Part of his duties required him to approve payments to the various insurance companies and the deferred compensation fund with money deducted from employees’ paychecks, Newman said. However, those payments were not made for two months, he said.

Police investigators do not know where the money went, Newman said. However, he said, investigators do not think McCassy pocketed any of it.

When employees asked McCassy about the missing funds, he blamed a management company that had been hired to assist with some of the dealership’s operations, Newman said.

Employees reported the missing funds to police two months ago, prompting an investigation.

Joellen Bearbower, 25, was one of the Slemons employees who found that the money she paid into a compensation fund was not being registered to her account.

“It kind of hurt because McCassy was always stressing he was a team player,” said Bearbower, who worked five years in a Slemons warehouse. “It felt like being back-stabbed.”

Bearbower has since been hired by Fletcher Jones, whose Las Vegas-based dealership bought out Slemons’ Newport Beach business.

Garth Blumenthal, general sales manager for Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in Newport Beach, declined comment on the case. However, he said the alleged fund diversion has not had any effect on the current ownership or sales.