Woman Gets Fine, Probation in Scam

A Carlsbad woman has been sentenced to probation and fined $2,500 for filing a false tax return in a bankruptcy-fraud scam involving her father, the Los Angeles lawyer who also is accused of soliciting bribes for Carson officials.

Kelly Walecki, 33, of Carlsbad told authorities in March that she had received $319,314 in unearned commissions from a real estate broker doing business with her father, Robert D. Pryce Jr., a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee.

Pryce told his daughter that he had hired Nelson Shelton & Associates, a Beverly Hills real estate firm, to sell property from bankrupt estates and that she would receive a portion of the commissions from those sales, Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas S. McConville said Tuesday.

After passing along money to her father, Walecki kept more than $39,000 in 1999 and failed to pay income taxes on about $19,000 of that amount, the plea agreement states.

Pryce received more than $130,000 between 1999 and 2001, court records show.

McConville said this case should send a strong message to minor players in major criminal schemes. “We’re going to prosecute them as well,” he said.

Besides the fine, U.S. District Court Judge A. Howard Matz on Monday ordered Walecki to pay taxes on the unreported income.

She already has done so, according to her defense attorney, Michael W. Fitzgerald.

During sentencing, Walecki, a former special education teacher, apologized to the court and her family, Fitzgerald said.

As part of her plea deal, Walecki, who now has a felony conviction on her record, agreed to testify against her father. But that won’t be necessary because Pryce later pleaded guilty in the separate Carson bribery and bankruptcy kickback schemes.

Pryce, 53, entered guilty pleas in August to 49 counts that included extortion, bribery, bankruptcy fraud and money laundering. He faces as much as eight years in federal prison.

In the Carson case, Pryce admitted negotiating a deal in which he, former Carson Mayor Daryl W. Sweeney and two former City Council members were to share a $585,000 bribe from Browning Ferris Industries in return for awarding the company a $60-million garbage contract. The city rescinded the deal after indictments were returned.