Promoter Pleads No Contest to Theft

A Tarzana promoter accused of embezzling $74,000 from the Los Angeles Police Department’s fund for widows and orphans of slain officers, as well as from celebrities Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, pleaded no contest Wednesday to 11 felony counts, prosecutors said.

William Patrick Bentley, 39, was ordered by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry to spend 90 days at the California Department of Corrections facility in Chino to undergo a diagnostic study before his Dec. 13 sentencing, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Kraut.

Bentley faces a maximum of eight years in state prison.

“What he did was outrageous and blatantly in the face of law enforcement and these celebrities,” Kraut said.

Bentley pleaded no contest to two grand theft and nine forgery counts stemming from the theft of $44,000 from Reynolds, Anderson, the Suarez Corp. and other victims in 1996. In 1998 and 1999, authorities said he took $30,000 from the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation.

Kraut said Bentley had been hired as the first paid coordinator of the Memorial Foundation’s annual Police-Celebrity Gold Tournament held to raise money for the fund.

Bentley told organizers he could line up Tom Cruise to host the tournament for broadcast on Fox Sports Network last May 15, but the actor did not appear. Last month, prosecutors filed charges against Bentley after he posed as a business manager for Reynolds and Anderson.