Storybook Island embezzler sentenced

By Vicky Wicks, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

RAPID CITY — Randall Kenneth Brown, the former Storybook Island director who stole thousands of dollars during seven months of employment, will spend at least a year in prison on a four-year sentence handed down Tuesday.

Brown, 29, of Rapid City, told 7th Circuit Judge Merton Tice Jr. that he is a gambling addict and was diagnosed as bipolar when he was a teen. Brown turned and apologized to about a dozen people in the courtroom, many of them Rotary Club members, for violating their trust.

Storybook Island, the children’s park at 1301 Sheridan Lake Road, is a Rotary Club project. Brown was director there between October 2003 and April 2004.

Rotary members Richard Wahlstrom and MaryAnn Jacob made statements in court to tell Tice of the effects of Brown’s crime. They said that because Storybook Island is operated with donated time and money, Brown stole more than money from the community and the children who go to the park.

Storybook Island is a place “where dreams can be expressed and children can run free without fear,” Wahlstrom said. “Randy’s actions placed that in extreme jeopardy.”

Jacob said Brown stole from the children and, until the money is replaced, took away the park’s progress. “He can never return the intangible elements he stole,” Jacob said.

Defense attorney Tom Diggins of Pennington County Public Defenders Office asked Tice to suspend imposition of sentence and require Brown to get help for his gambling addiction and serve time in the local jail.

“A felony conviction is a social-life sentence,” Diggins said to support his request for a suspended imposition. And if Brown goes to prison, he will still be a gambling addict when he comes out, Diggins said. “We can’t send him to prison forever.”

But Pennington County State’s Attorney Glenn Brenner said Brown should “darken the doors” of the penitentiary for a period of time and asked for a seven-year prison sentence. Brenner also asked Tice to order Brown to repay $10,938.44 for the thefts and audit fees to Storybook Island and $5,037.60 to Mr. Movies on Sturgis Road, where he worked from December 2004 to April 2005, after leaving Storybook Island. Brown was charged with grand theft for stealing from that employer, but the charge was dismissed in exchange for Brown’s guilty plea on the other charge.

Brown told Tice that his crimes were not the result of his addiction or mental status. “I blame them on my poor choices,” he said. The thefts from Storybook Island left “an indelible stain on a place I loved working for,” he said. “I have made horrible, horrible mistakes.”

Tice called Brown “articulate” and “disarming” but noted discrepancies between Brown’s statements in the courtroom and those he made to court-services officers who filed a pre-sentence report.

Brown didn’t start attending Gamblers Anonymous until after the first sentencing date was set, Tice said. The defendant didn’t contact the Restorative Justice program, had not received counseling for his problems and made no effort to repay any of the money he stole, Tice said.

“I have very little sympathy for your articulate words,” Tice said. “Had you made a single effort, … I would have taken a different look at this thing.”

Tice sentenced Brown to 10 years in prison but suspended six years with conditions. Brown must to attend Gamblers Anonymous once a week, enter a treatment program, make full restitution to victims and for the cost of prosecution, repay the county $639 in court-appointed attorney fees, use no alcohol, pay $1,000 before the end of the month and pay 20 percent of his gross income or $150 a month, whichever is greater, toward restitution.

As a first-time felon convicted of a nonviolent crime, Brown will serve 25 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Brown must turn himself in to Pennington County Jail on Nov. 28, allowing him to finish out his role in the Black Hills Community Theatre production of “Dearly Departed,” which runs through Nov. 20.

Contact Vicky Wicks at 394-8318 or vicky.wicks@rapidcityjournal.com