BANGOR, Maine — A former part-time bookkeeper at a local nursery and garden center was sentenced Thursday at the Penobscot Judicial Center to nine years in prison with all but four years suspended for embezzling more than $400,000 from the firm.
Ellen F. Wilson Gunstone, 57, formerly of Bangor, pleaded no contest to one count of theft by unauthorized taking, a Class B crime, shortly before being sentenced.
No-contest pleas result in convictions.
In addition to prison time, District Court Judge John Lucy sentenced Wilson Gunstone to four years of probation and ordered her to pay $5,000 per year, or a total of $15,000, in restitution to Sprague’s Nursery and Garden Center in Bangor.
Wilson Gunstone stole the money over a five-year period, between 2007 and August 2012.
The sentence was agreed to by Michael Roberts, deputy district attorney for Penobscot County, and defense attorney Randy Day of Garland.
Wilson Gunstone did not address the court but a co-owner of the firm did.
Daniel Sprague objected to the low restitution amount.
“This has caused a lot of stress for myself, my business and my partner,” he told Lucy. “She ought to be paying us back. Fifteen thousand is not a lot of money for us. I’d rather see her in jail for nine years.”
The judge said that the law requires him to consider the defendant’s financial capacity to be able to pay restitution when imposing a restitution order.
“I’d like to make Sprague’s whole but I don’t think the defendant has the ability to do that,” the prosecutor told Lucy.
Roberts said after the sentencing that Wilson Gunstone is expected to go on disability when she completes her sentence.
In addition to paying restitution, Wilson Gunstone must undergo substance abuse counseling, not use illegal drugs and submit to testing while on probation.
The prosecutor said outside the courthouse that information was provided to his office that indicated Wilson Gunstone spent the money she embezzled from the nursery on illegal drugs.
“She was not living a flamboyant lifestyle,” he said.
It was the second time in a decade that Wilson Gunstone was convicted of stealing from a former employer, according to the Bangor Daily News archives. She was sentenced in December 2003 to five years in prison with all but nine months suspended and four years of probation for that crime.
She also was ordered to to pay $200,000 in restitution to Maine Energy, which she paid before getting the job at Sprague’s, according to Roberts. The nursery was not aware of her conviction when she was hired, the prosecutor said.
Efforts to reach Sprague after the sentencing were unsuccessful.
Wilson Gunstone has been held at the Penobscot County Jail unable to post $50,000 cash bail since December, when she was arrested in Pennsylvania. That time will count toward her sentence.
She was indicted on the theft charge in January 2013 by the Penobscot County grand jury. Roberts said in December when Wilson Gunstone was arraigned on the charge that she fled Maine for Pennsylvania after learning of the indictment and refused to tell investigators where she was living.
She faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.