Posted on 05/15/2003 11:46:40 AM PDT by lilylangtree
SEATTLE--The largest known theft of public funds in Washington state history has landed a former high-rolling Democratic Party, gay rights and Indian activist nearly five years in prison.
Russell Lee LaFountaine, 34, a contract hauler who overcharged the Liquor Control board $840,000 over three years, received the maximum sentence under state guidelines Tuesday in King County Superior Court.
The money went for a lifestyle that included a luxury rental home of Lake Wahsingotn, yacht rentals, luxury suites at Safeco Field and lavish parties for political allies.
LaFountaine told Judge Michael J. Trickey his downfall was alcohol and crack cocaine.
"I'm sorry for what had transpired. I guess my addiction got the best of me," he said. "I was doing drugs right up to the time I got caught."
Trickey rejected LaFountaine's request to be sent to a boot camp for drug addicts.
"I've seen the way drugs and alcohol can ruin people's lives," Trickey said. Even so, the judge added, leniency would be wrong because "the nature of the (theft) is so significant."
Thurston County Deputy prosecutor Wayne Graham--the case was brought in Olympia--rejected the drugs-made-me-do-it argument.
"We feel his addiction to power and influence far exceeded his addiction to a controlled substance," Graham said. "He liked being a big fish."
State auditors said the biggest fraud case they had seen was revealed when LaFountaine's invoices were found to include inflated weights of deliveries to liquor stores, double billings for some deliveries and charges for deliveries never made.
In a modified guilty plea to 12 counts of first-degree theft, LaFountaine agreed last month that a jury would find he submitted increasingly false bills to the liquor board.
Under a plea agreement he insisted on being sentenced in Seattle rather than Olympia, a provision prosecutors accepted to avoid the cost of a trial.
The wife and I knew Mike Trickey from long before his appointment to the bench. He's always struck us as being a very honorable man -- and I have no doubt he was put under a lot of political (party) pressure to make it easy for this guy. But as the wife says, he'd never yield to pressure like that; he clearly hasn't here.
Mike is the one King County Judge I've never hesitated to vote for.
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