IDAHO FALLS – A local woman, Brooke Armstrong, 34, was sentenced this week to four months in jail and eight years probation for stealing more than $150,000 from three area businesses.
Four months, and that’s it? I cannot believe how light her sentence was! In addition to the jail time and probation, prosecutors are requesting that Armstrong be required to pay restitution; however, the judge has not yet determined the amount. Nonetheless, Armstrong “vows” to repay all of the money she has stolen from the three businesses over the past few years. Somehow, I just don’t see that happening unless prosecution is successful in persuading Judge Joel Tingey to call for a full restitution and garnish her current and future wages.
By only being required to serve four months behind bars and making no restitution, that equates to her earning $39,500 for each month served. To top that off, she really won’t even spend that much time in jail, as she will participate in the county’s work release program. This means she will be free to leave the jail for up to 12 hours a day, six days per week, to continue in her employment. She will also be free to leave jail for job training and continued counseling.
Wow, where’s the deterrent in being paid the equivalent of $39,500 per month and really only spend 96 hours (4 days) per week behind bars – plus room and board?
Originally, Mrs. Armstrong could have faced $15,000 in fines and 42 years behind bars. However, prosecutors were pushing for anywhere between 18 months to 10 years in jail. I guess Judge Tingey must have felt that was too harsh, so he instead lightly smacked her on the hands and asked that she please not do it again.
Yet, this isn’t the first time Mrs. Armstrong has behaved badly or lacked judgment. In 1993, Armstrong was found guilty of another serious crime and convicted of forgery. I wonder what her sentence was back then; it too must have been lenient, as it sure didn’t stop her from embezzling more than $150,000 fifteen years later. The sad part is the judge knew this, and he still handed down an unusually light sentence.
One of the more humorous parts of the story is one of the excuses offered in Armstrong’s defense. The defense had Armstrong’s counselor take the stand to state that she has been treating Armstrong for several behavioral issues including a “serious shopping addiction.” The counselor went on to say she felt Armstrong has made great progress and that prison would not help in her treatment. (Does this remind anyone of the Winona Ryder defense?)
Stealing more than $150,000 is a crime of significant magnitude, yet with such a light sentence, what kind of message is Judge Tingey sending to other criminals and embezzlers here in the Idaho Falls area? What kind of precedence is he setting? How is this consistent with other sentences, such as another woman receiving five years for stealing $50 thousand, just 1/3 of what Mrs. Armstrong stole?
Brooke Armstrong has until Saturday to check herself into jail.
Again, I ask you – Where’s the justice? Are our judges too soft? Is the judicial system broken?
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{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
I wonder how much time she would have gotten if she lived in a trailor park and had a problem with drugs or alcohol. Someone that appears to come from the middle or upper class can steal bunches of money and get off with a slap on the wrist. The prisons are full of people who stole a few hundred bucks or sold small amounts of drugs but these people did not live in 200,000 dollar homes and drive SUVs. The problem with cases like this is it brings an outcry for stiffer sentences and more jail time. The United States has the largest prison population in the world per person. We imprison more people per capita than China, Iran or any other country. The US is truly the Prison State.
Randy J.
There are a number of issues herethat the author of this thread failed to accurately address.
1. Was Armstrong’s punishment reflective of a typical punishment for embezzlement. In this case her punishment is very typical of what an embezzler gets. The only real difference is that she stole from King Vandersloot and he’s the one driving the fury over the sentence. Sure you don’t see the King’s name in the OP but his name was all over the news this morning where he was speaking his outrage over the sentence. If the King would get off his pedestal for a minute and a study the sentences of other embezzlers in the area he’d see that Armstrong’s sentence was the norm. Whether you believe that norm should be more is a different issue. Remember the Jefferson county school district embezzler who stole nearly $600,000 – Armstrong got a nearly identical sentence to him (if memory serves he did a rider which means six months). Remember the Bingham county school district employee who rigged the payroll system so that money from all the other employees checks was added to her own – she didn’t serve a single day in jail. Remember Lisa Hansen, the Bonneville county DMV employee who earlier this year got caught embezzling – she is serving six months in jail. Its clear Armstrong’s sentence is similar to other typical embezzlers.
2. You must consider the reality of the Idaho prison system. Its bursting at the seams, and has been for a decade, and no one in our political system is doing much to fix it. If you start putting white collar criminals in prison for long terms you take up space needed for violent criminals. Women don’t commit as many violent crimes as men but there is also only a fraction of the room for women as men. Your choices are: 1) Pay significantly more taxes in order make more prison space or 2) Accept that judges will be forced to give sentences like this to white collar criminals.
Good comment Anonymous. makes sense.
You know, this is sad. The people that end up getting punished the most are her employers who file charges. Attorney’s fees and court fees and no way they are going to get repayed. it teaches people who this happens to not to bother with trying to get justice, cause it just ain’t happening.
It doesn’t cost the employers a thing to file charges or to have court because the prosecuting attorney is the employer’s lawyer in this and the PA is paid by the taxpayers. The only expense to the employers was the money that stolen in the first place.
Another thing to consider on this – ideally you want the employer to paid back. If the bad guy is in jail for 5 years they can’t pay back a dime. If they are on work release / probation they can work and at least pay some back. Odds are the scales will never fully balance but some is better than none.
Good point on comment 5, I’m sure most people are more interested in recouping their losses than punishment.
I feel the same way about non-custodial parents losing their drivers licenses over non payment of child support. All that does is start a slippery slope to more hardship for that parent which makes paying their support much less likely.
If you can’t work, you can’t pay.
I disagree that it doesn’t cost the employeer. Maybe in this specific case it didn’t ost them I’m unsure, but I know that in other cases of embesslement etc it costs the employeers loads. It costs them not only the cost of filing a complaint (business lawyers are pricey even when going for a consultation to see what it would take to bring someone like this to justice), and it costs them the time to testify (if required).
In fact, my father ( a business owner) couldn’t afford to bring someone like this to justice so he didn’t file changes. This was several years ago and the man went on to embessle from Lone Pine Nursery after that. That sucks and is NOT RIGHT that the victim is forced to “swallow it” because they’ve got no money left after being swindled therefore allowing it to continue!
I’m sorry about your father’s experience April. But it doesn’t cost anything to file charges so I don’t see how your father couldn’t afford it. I understand that some of the victims of Ms. Armstrong have already received some of their money back from either insurance or civil means. On the surface her sentence might seem too light but that’s the way the judicial system works around here. If a male and a female commit the same crime the male will always get a harsher sentence. Just watch and see, it happens every time. In my opinion something about this article makes it read like a press release from Frank VanderSloot. Coincidence?
White color criminals usually get off easier because those who are in authority sympathize with them much more. Our judges are usually right on the money about sentencing – witness Ms. Cancer-Faker a few weeks ago only took a few thousand, compared to Ms. Armstrong’s 100s of thousands, and is spending several weeks in jail.
However – courthouse rumors tells that there was some behind the scenes intervention from a prominent local politician/attorney that was present at her sentencing, that got Ms. Armstrong a better deal than her lawyer was able to cut for her.
BTW – restitution is to be determined, which does not mean she won’t pay, just the government wasn’t ready with a final number yet.
@ Guest 1 – VanderSnoots always have their hands in something around here – but I think they got burned on this one, this time.
Hey nony, good point. However I doubt this incident hurt the vsnoots wallet very much so I have a hard time dolling out any sympathy their way..
April, I don’t think you understand how the process works.
Lets say employer X, oh lets just call him Frank, find out that employee Y, lets call her Brooke, is embezzling. Frank gathers the proof and calls the police. Calling the police is FREE and they then take over. The police investigate, their salaries are paid by the taxpayers, and if there is a case they arrest. Still FREE. The prosecutors then take over, they are also paid by the taxpayers and thus are also FREE to the employer.
The only reason Frank / employer would ever need to hire his own attorney is if the embezzlement scheme was too complex for Frank to understand on his own but in that case he most likely would need an accountant not a lawyer. There is the issue of paying wages to whoever is unraveling the embezzlement (but these would have paid anyway) and while testifying but since few cases in reality ever go more than a day or two your only talking a few hours pay at most so even thats not really that much.
Armstrong embezzles $100,000+ from Frank Vandersloot’s company Inunison Inc, Inunison is a bookkeeping/auditing/billing management company, it took Vandersloot to realize he was missing $100,000 and this is from a Auditing/Accounting Company?, I though Frank had better business sense that to let that happen. Inunison Inc owns 3 Private ambulance companies in Montana, one in Missoula (Missoula Emergency Services) and two in Great Falls (Great Falls Emergency Services and MCA). Those ambulance Companies are co-operated between Vandersloot and his son-in-law “Diamond” Dave Kuhn, Diamond Dave also manages the “Flying Dutchman” Vandersloot’s River Bend Ranch west of Idaho Falls. There have been numeous problems with the Flying Dutchman (his roots are from the Neatherlands hence the name), and Diamond Dave managing these private ambulance services. Poor working conditions, LOW Pay ($10/hr for paramedic, $5.75 for EMT), threats from the Dutchman and Diamond Dave if the little minions didn’t play right with them forced the employees to joing a national ems union. Diamond Dave was overtaken with employee revolt so he had to call daddy-in-law(the Flying Dutchman) in (via one of his 3 lear jets, the one Mitt Romney flew into IF by?). Frank called in a union busting law firm from Seattle to wreck the union plans those pesky employees got, which didn’t work. When settling the comtract with the City of Great Falls, the Dutchman ending up paying $100,000/yr for the 5 year contract for ambulance dispatching costs so now the Flying Dutchman can charge injured and ill $700+ for a ride to the hospital. In Missoula, Diamond Dave told city officials that his ambulance service only collects .46 cents on the dollar for ambulance operation, hmmm poor way to run a “for profit” service I think. But Diamond Dave also said that his companies donated one $100 grand to hurricane victims in New Orleans and during Huricane Rita later on, I thought that was the amount ther Dutchman raised and contributed to hurricane relief from Idaho Falls, NOT Montana, looks like a HUGE Tax Write Business(s) in Montana. I hope the Flying Dutchman and Diamond Dave don’t start a “For Profit” mbulance Service here, they’re go broke real fast.
Who cares if it is Vandersloot. The fact is that Tingey is soft on criminals….period. If it was your business and you took the brunt of a theft, it would either: a) increase your insurance, b) cause the insurance company to drop your coverage or c) you don’t have insurance and you go out of business.
Anybody remember Tingey sentencing the sex offender from Dubois (who had child pornography) and molested his niece? The guy got 7 years in federal prison….then Tingey sentenced him on State charges and gave him 6 years concurrent, meaning the time ran together at the same time with this guy being eligible for state parole before he was even released from prison! Why even bother. The victims mom couldn’t even figure it out either.
I thought that there were some good arguments made here on this thread….and it stands to reason that her crime was not violent….but she is a repeat offender. Her original name is Brooke Norlen. She violated probation before but skated by because she pulled the rehab card several times (and still is). Her brother, Mark, got out of prison using a brain injury defense. So, it looks like it’s all in the family and they know what to say….and the Court does not really seem to spend much time looking into the real history of cases like this and hands out a cookie cutter sentence. At some point, when does society stop buying the same old tired rehabiliation claims and drop the hammer on repeat criminals?
PS-I have to say that Frank should have done a better job hiring a background screening firm that would have picked up her aliases and known she had a prior felony forgery offense. If you don’t let the Fox in the henhouse in the first place you won’t end up missing chickens. Don’t hire forging felons to work in an accounting firm. For that, I will say Frank screwed up…..but he is a victim just like anyone else that has had money stolen from them. The fact that he has money shouldn’t matter. Justice should be blind, and maybe it is in this case and others…..perhaps a little too blind.
I’ve got a slightly different view on this, doesn’t it figure?
I’ve never been in trouble with the law myself, but I’ve known a number of people who have, or have had children who have. They all say that prison, or even county jail is a pain in the rear, and being out of there is like Christmas, but then they get to start experiencing life under supervised probation.
Probation isn’t free. Probation application in Idaho is $50 and the monthly fee is $40. Just enough money to make a person resentful that they have to pay for the privilege of having someone tell them how to run their lives for the next eight years.
She’ll be told the types of work she’ll be allowed to do, and they’ll make sure she get’s a job and keeps it. She’ll have to keep her address current with her PO at all times. She won’t be able to leave the state without the courts permission. If she gets caught hanging out with other people in the system the terms of her probation can become downright uncomfortable.
Her life will change dramatically. If the court deems it’s a good idea, she could be placed on random drug and alcohol testing. No more wine with dinner for Brooke. Oh how fun that would be.
It makes me want to run right an and become an embezzler.
Re: Comment #13
I have known people who spent time in federal prison and 7 years in a federal prison is a lot more than a slap on the wrist. And I could be wrong but I was also under the impression that running state and federal sentences concurrently is not allowed.
I hate to see any business owner victimized like that but maybe the one who really put one over on Frank VanderSloot was named Karma.
ok, spoke with my mother tonight about past issues with embezzler.
The system is not supposed to cost the victim but it does. The police only take evidence they do not press charges. In an ideal world they would, but are usually too busy taking care of the dangerous criminals to have time making a big deal out of white collar crime. Besides the fact that they are not CPA’s etc and many times the embezzlement is hidden at least a little bit. If an employeer wants to make sure justice is done they have to pay someone who knows the law to help them do it. And possibly some expert witnesses too (such as accounting experts)
If you want to argue this, it is fine. I won’t believe it doesn’t cost the employeer until I have an employeer who has had this happen to them tells me as much.
Boy do I wish the system worked as it should.
April, you still don’t get it.
If the police don’t press charges, aka arrest, that means there either isn’t probable cause to make the arrest or the victim has decided they don’t want anything done. In this case the police did arrest Armstrong so that point is moot. But even if the police don’t arrest there isn’t a way, as you imply, for the victim to then pay money to have charges pressed. The victim might call the prosecutor and talk the prosecutor into filing charges but that again is FREE. I’ve already stated the ways embezzling does cost the victim money and pressing charges is not one of them.
And as I stated earlier, if an employer gets embezzled from one of two things happen. They either catch it themselves or their accountant catches it. Whether or not the employer presses charges they are going to pay this expense to get their books straightened out and figure out which employee is stealing from them. So saying that this is an expense because of pressing charges is not correct. Once again pressing charges is FREE.
As for expert witnesses – they are paid by the prosecutor not the victim. The only time the victim would pay is in a civil trial. Lets say Vandersloot sues Armstrong, then the bill is on him. But in a criminal trial the bill is on the prosecutor.
in an ideal world….
Are you an employer that has had this happen to you? Or do you know someone personally that has had it happen to them? Until I get someone that is a business lawyer or an employeer who has been there that tells me it didn’t cost them a dime I’m never going to believe that justice happens at the cost of the tax payer. It is simply not true.
Can we ask this womens employeers if it cost them anything to have her tried? Seriously. I want to hear it from them not from someone who knows the theory on how this should all work but has not seen in real life how it really does work.
BTW anonymous what experience do you have with this kind of thing? where are you getting your information?
I would think that even if the state supplies legal counsel, that may not be all you would need to get the outcome that you want.
If you were being accused in court, and you were financially able, wouldn’t you seek the best defense you could afford?
I guess you could get your legal counsel for free, but sometimes you just get what you pay for. Also, sadly, in legal circles as well as other aspects of life, money can get things done the way you want them done.
If you’re interested in her case history: https://www.idcourts.us/repository/caseHistory.do?roaDetail=yes&schema=BONNEVILLE&county=Bonneville&partySeq=281962&displayName=Armstrong%2C+Brooke+M
Near the bottom of the page, the forgery case seems to have been dismissed with a withheld judgment. $43.50 in fees and 2 years probation.
Anonymous is correct, the state would pay those expert witness charges, and could if successful at trial, require those to be paid by the defendant. One needs but read the appropriate Idaho statutes to find the information.
Tingey may have sentenced Ms. Armstrong lighter than many would have wanted, but the truth is white color criminals get off much lighter than ‘common’ ones. Locking Ms. Armstrong up longer wouldn’t have paid Mr. Vandersloot back any faster – and as prior posters have indicated, for the nature of her crime – her sentence was pretty middle of the road.
A “six-month” rider is finished as soon as all the appropriate classes are completed – depending on the person, that could be as little as 4 months.
A local judge may run or give credit to a local sentence while serving time in federal prison. It’s optional with the judge. Now, a federal judge may not be able to do the reverse, I don’t have the U.S. Code right in front of me right now. But I do know that Congress abolished parole in the federal prison system in 1984, so a ‘7 year sentence’ in federal prison means 7 years.
Idaho prefers a probation/parole model, where convicted felons are rehabilitated (to an extent) in the community, and with the budget crisis the state is experiencing – there is a ‘no growth’ policy at the prison – unless the offender is so dangerous that only locking him/her up is the solution, expect most offenders will serve local or short sentences, and be placed on a supervised release. So, unless Mr. Vandersloot wants to build, and staff a new prison with his millions – local time is much, much easier on my tax bill.
OMG – (from the other embezzlers topic)
http://www.houndbite.com/?houndbite=11248
“Hi I’m Joe Smith”.. Hahaha
A Nony Mouse (#9) – It is quite possible that the rumors you reference are true. It is my understanding that Blake Hall is the prominent attorney and politician in question. The scuttlebutt is that Mr. Hall wrote the letter on Brooke’s behalf. It is also my understanding that Mr. Hall was a law partner of Judge Tingey, and that he helped secure/lobby Judge Tingey’s appointment to the bench. Furthermore, I understand that Mr. Blake Hall was present in the courtroom at the sentencing.
Lastly, the scuttlebutt is that Mr. Hall may have once had an affair with Mrs. Armstrong. Hmmm, and if all this is true… what might one suggest?
We can only hope that the Post Register or some other local news agency does some digging to find the true story behind the Armstrong-Tingey-Hall connection.
Now THAT’S funny stuff! Great audio file! Where did you find that?
“Embezzlers Club supports the re-election of Joel Tingey.” LOL.
I didn’t find the sound file so funny man.
Sometimes you either have to laugh or you end up crying. I choose to laugh
I thought it was kinda stupid. But everyone has a different taste in comedy or satire.
I thought it was immature. Was that Neal Larson’s voice I heard? Who was the name they said at the end?
When your stoned everything seems funny so its no shock it was the resident stoner that posted it and found it funny.
I think that was kind of out of line Candice.
I thought it was funny. sometimes things are so rediculous you have to make a joke out of them. Even if the joke isn’t the best, it still makes a point.