Man Accused of Stealing From Area Charities

A Ventura man has been arrested on suspicion of bilking more than $700,000 from Ventura and Santa Barbara county charities for the mentally disabled--three months after a colleague was convicted of embezzling from the same nonprofits, authorities said.

Allen Henry Norton, 51, was taken into custody Monday by the district attorney’s major fraud unit after a yearlong investigation, Vinse Gilliam, deputy chief investigator, said. Norton has been charged with multiple counts of grand theft and embezzlement, authorities said.

Norton is accused of stealing the money while serving as general manager for Ventura and Oxnard thrift stores owned by the Foundation for Retarded Citizens of Ventura County and a third operated by the Santa Maria Assn. for the Retarded in Santa Barbara County.

Norton’s arraignment Tuesday in Ventura County Superior Court was postponed until Friday. He remains in jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, officials said.

The arrest marked the second time in the past nine months that an administrator for the Ventura- and Santa Maria-based charitable groups has been accused of stealing money meant to aid the mentally disabled.

Paul Peachey, 61, an Oxnard accountant who provided bookkeeping services to both charities for 18 years, was sentenced in February to nine years in state prison for embezzling more than $1 million from the two organizations.

Investigators said Peachey used the cash to build a 5,400-square-foot-home on 20 acres of farmland near Bakersfield. The foundation took the deed of the house after Peachey’s arrest and recently sold it for $240,000, foundation President Andrew Soter said.

Soter and other officials with the Ventura organization expressed shock Tuesday at what they called “an embarrassing and awkward situation.”

Gilliam said the investigation of Norton began after a routine audit by an outside accounting firm uncovered missing funds from the accounts of the thrift stores.

The same audit had implicated Peachey.

There is no evidence that Norton and Peachey had been working together to embezzle money, Gilliam said. Norton is suspected of funneling money from the thrift store accounts into his personal account between 1995 and 2000 and then using the funds to pay for designer clothes, limousine rides, resort vacations and stereo and video equipment.

Investigators have recovered nearly $45,000 worth of property allegedly purchased with the stolen funds and $10,000 in jewelry.

“Mr. Norton embezzled the money by diverting the funds for his own needs,” Gilliam said. “He single-handedly deprived those most in need of precious resources which could have benefited hundreds and possibly thousands of individuals.”

Officials with the Ventura foundation said they notified their colleagues in Santa Maria of financial discrepancies after their audit. That organization conducted its own probe and contacted Oxnard police, officials said.

Norton worked for a private management company employed by the Ventura County foundation for nearly 20 years, said Shirley Jones, the organization’s executive director.

Jones said she never suspected wrongdoing until the 2000 audit turned up missing funds in Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Maria.

She said Norton appeared before the foundation’s board of directors and blamed higher costs and more new thrift stores for cutting into revenue earnings. Norton was fired from his position in December 2000, Jones said.