This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Tonya Lee Mims contends her husband's gambling and aspirations to be a golf professional led her to siphon off almost $2 million from her employer.
Now divorced and remarried, the West Jordan woman told U.S. District Judge David Winder on Wednesday that she regrets her actions.
"I know what I've done is wrong," said Mims, 29. "I'm truly sorry for the mistake I've made."
Winder sentenced Mims to almost three years in prison and ordered her to pay $1,788,593 in restitution, at a rate of at least $1,000 a month once she's released. The money will go to cover what the judge described as the "monstrous loss" suffered by Superior Care Pharmacy Inc. and its insurance company.
Defense attorney Robert Knight said Mims, who was office manager at the pharmacy's Salt Lake City branch, took the money to help her then-husband. The money has been spent, he said, and his client will spend the rest of her life paying restitution.
In a deal with prosecutors, Mims pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. She said in a written statement that she posted checks intended for Superior Care, which sells pharmaceutical and medical products, to the company books but omitted them from the spreadsheet she submitted to the billing department.
To cover her tracks, she stamped the diverted checks "For Deposit Only" so customers would be unaware that their payments had been stolen. The thefts took place from September 1999 to March 2004.
At Wednesday's sentencing, a lawyer for the pharmacy contended that not all of the money went to Mims' former husband.
Jeffrey Stevens told the judge that Mims and her current husband have a house valued at about $350,000, the biggest in their West Jordan neighborhood. He disputed the contention that there is no equity in the home, which Mims is in the process of selling.
In addition, Stevens said he is suspicious of the statement that all the money is gone. "To say it [the money] simply vanished . . . defies belief," the lawyer said.