SeaTac mayor gets 11 months of work release for theft
Saturday, April 5, 2003 10:27 AM PST
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleSEATTLE (AP) -- Former SeaTac Mayor Kathy Gehring-Waters has been sentenced to 11 months of jail work release and one month of community service for stealing thousands of dollars from her elderly neighbor.
Gehring-Waters, 59, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree theft in February and resigned as mayor.
Initially, she pleaded innocent to three counts of first-degree theft and one count of obtaining a signature by deception or duress.
Prosecutors alleged she took $243,000 in money and property from Violet Miller, an 86-year-old neighbor who gave Gehring-Waters power of attorney to manage her finances.
Gehring-Waters acknowledged she transferred $25,000 from Miller's account to her own in 1999, then used $6,00 of it to buy stock for herself.
She has paid full restitution to Miller and apologized for her misdeeds at her sentencing in King County Superior Court on Friday.
"I deeply regret the mistakes I made," she said. "I assure this court I had no intention to harm Violet at all."
Miller, who is legally blind, sat at the prosecutor's table in court.
Lynn Prunhuber, a senior deputy prosecutor, read from a letter Miller sent to the judge: "I've never had friends turn back on me like Kathy did. I feel like she made a sucker of me."
Judge Sharon Armstrong ordered Gehring-Waters to jail April 25.
Gehring-Waters had been a member of the SeaTac City Council since 1989. Voters in the south Seattle suburb elect seven council members, one of whom the council chooses to serve as mayor. Gehring-Waters was selected in January 2002.
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