Tom Ely, Embattled Former College Trustee, Dies at 58 : Cancer: He was convicted in 1991 of embezzling $15,000 from the district. Because of his illness, a judge revoked his still-unserved sentence earlier this month.

James T. (Tom) Ely, the defiantly independent former Ventura County Community College District trustee who was convicted two years ago of embezzling school funds, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 58.

Ely died Thursday at home in Vista in northern San Diego County with his second wife Ingrid beside him, said his attorney, James M. Farley of Ventura.

“He was taken out of the hospital a few days earlier and taken home through a hospice program,” Farley said. “Just a few deep breaths and he was gone.”

Ely had suffered for some time from cancer that was first diagnosed as a tumor in his face in 1991, shortly before a Ventura County judge sentenced him to a year in jail for embezzling $15,000 through padded expense vouchers turned in to the college district.

Radical surgery to stop the cancer removed half of Ely’s face last year. On Dec. 17, because of the disease’s spread, Superior Court Judge Lawrence J. Storch revoked the still-unserved sentence that Ely was given for the felony conviction.

“He never gave up; he was a fighter to the end,” Ingrid Ely said Monday. “Even that week (that he died), he said, ‘I’m going to fight this thing.’ ”

Ely was born Feb. 1, 1936, in Los Angeles and grew up in Van Nuys, the son of a plumber and a drugstore inventory clerk, said his wife, to whom he had been married for 25 years.

He graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1954 after playing on the same school baseball team as Don Drysdale, she said. But Tom Ely turned down a chance to play minor league baseball for the Chicago White Sox organization that year because the low-paying job would take him away from his newlywed first wife, she said.

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He sold insurance for many years, first as an insurance company employee and later as an independent agent, and worked to sell employers on a then-new idea--dental insurance--that turned out to be “moderately successful” for some of his clients, his wife said.

In 1971, Ely left insurance work to take a job selling industrial chemicals, but a slip-and-fall injury on the job put him out on disability and he later retired, his wife said.

He later earned a law degree in 1981 from the Ventura College of Law, she said.

The couple moved to Simi Valley, where Ingrid Ely enrolled at Moorpark College to study music and education, and Tom Ely worked as secretary for the Moose Lodge.

While his wife studied, Ely became interested in the workings of the Ventura Community College District, she said. When then-Trustee Tom Jolicoeur announced that he would not seek reelection, Ely ran in 1979 and beat five other competitors for the post.

He worked hard to persuade eastern Ventura County cities to provide financial support for Moorpark College, as did the cities surrounding Ventura and Oxnard colleges, his wife said.

“He did a lot for the college. He was dedicated to working for Moorpark College,” Ingrid Ely said.

Trustee Timothy Hirschberg said that when they first met in 1987, Ely struck him as “an imposing figure.”

“He was, on the surface, very impressive, very self-assured and knowledgeable and wanted to do and run everything,” Hirschberg said. “It was pretty much his personality.”

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Ely’s most prominent legal troubles began in 1990, the same year that the Simi Valley Republican ran for the 4th District county supervisor’s seat.

In April, 1990, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury announced that his office was investigating allegations that Tom and Ingrid Ely--who was president of the Moorpark College Alumni Assn.--were embezzling district funds by padding expense accounts and double-charging for expenses that had already been reimbursed.

The probe led to the couple’s heavily publicized arrest, trial and--in 1991, months after Tom Ely lost the primary race for supervisor--conviction on charges of embezzlement and conspiracy.

That was not the last of the couple’s legal problems. The Elys moved to San Diego County earlier this year after losing their Simi Valley home to bankruptcy. Papers filed in federal court in Los Angeles revealed in 1990 that the couple owed creditors $303,533, including more than $50,000 in gambling debts to nine Nevada casinos.

The Ely embezzlement case forced big changes on the district board.

District officials began demanding that trustees make quarterly expense accounts of every nickel spent, and that they relinquish perks such as those enjoyed by the Elys--including fax machines, computer and telephone equipment in their homes, and lifetime health benefits, Hirschberg said.

“We also enacted a trustee ethics code in the wake of those incidents, so there have been lasting changes” because of Ely’s conviction, he said.

A year ago, a California appeals court overturned embezzlement, theft and conspiracy convictions against Ingrid Ely, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove that she intended to help her husband defraud the district.

But the court upheld Tom Ely’s conviction, and the district attorney’s office continued to press for him to serve the one-year jail sentence that his illness had delayed several times.

It was only on Dec. 17 that Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson relented and asked that his sentence be revoked--a request that Storch granted.

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After learning Monday of his death, Nelson said: “I’m really sorry to hear that,” and expressed concern for Ingrid Ely.

Ingrid Ely said of her husband’s role in the case: “Tom never felt that he did anything wrong. . . . He never tried to get a single penny from anybody.

“If he made a mistake and the business office didn’t catch it, then Tom was very sorry for the mistake. There was never any problem until Michael Bradbury decided he didn’t want Tom to be a supervisor and tried to cut his throat.”

Bradbury was unavailable for comment, but Assistant Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White said the office declined to respond to the charge.

Patrick Hughes, a close friend of the Elys for 18 years, said the scandal that consumed Ely’s final years was orchestrated for political reasons to thwart his bid for the supervisor’s seat. Local newspapers “tried and convicted him before the damn thing was over with,” said Hughes, a retired Oxnard College philosophy teacher.

“I felt that he worked very hard for the district,” Hughes said Monday. “He was a very fine man.”

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Ely is survived by his wife, two sons, his sister and four grandchildren.

Rosary will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at St. Francis Catholic Church, 525 W. Vista Way in Vista. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday at St. Sebastian Roman Catholic Church, 1453 Federal Ave., West Los Angeles.