Former Sony Pictures Executive Sentenced

A former Sony Pictures executive was sentenced to a five-year prison term for stealing nearly $500,000 from the film studio by authorizing payments to a firm run by an associate, authorities said.

Georgette Sue Studnicka, who served as the studio’s vice president for music publishing, also was ordered to pay more than $453,000 in restitution.

Authorities said that beginning in 1991, Studnicka made increasingly large payments to an outside firm, Music Data Services, supposedly for orchestrations of music used in Sony films. But in fact, the firm didn’t provide any services and Studnicka split the money with the firm’s executive Linda Sue Brooks, a co-defendant who was sentenced to 40 months.

Studnicka was fired in August 1999 when the arrangement was discovered, authorities said.

-- Jeff Leeds