A decide on Wednesday sentenced the previous treasurer of the Ridgefield Little League to 6 months in jail for stealing about $100,000 from the group.
Eric W. Hebner, 43, of Ridgefield pleaded responsible in Clark County Superior Courtroom to first-degree theft and forgery. Further expenses of forgery and one rely of illegal issuance of checks had been dismissed as part of the plea settlement. He’s additionally allowed to serve the final 30 days of his sentence on a jail work crew.
The vice chairman of the league instructed Choose John Fairgrieve that the Ridgefield group continues to be hurting over the betrayal of the theft, and the group’s board members have confronted private criticism over Hebner’s actions.
Hebner apologized to the league members and his household. He stated he “screwed up” and that issues acquired uncontrolled shortly.
The decide stated he may inform Hebner was remorseful, however Fairgrieve additionally famous the severity of the affect theft has on a group group like Little League.
In a earlier assertion to The Columbian, the league’s board stated it has applied processes to stop any theft sooner or later.”
In January, Ridgefield police met with the league’s board members, who stated they’d been contacted by distributors about lack of fee. The board stated it talked to Hebner concerning the difficulty, however he by no means paid the distributors, in response to a possible trigger affidavit.
The board went to Umpqua Financial institution in December, and the financial institution stated the league’s account had been closed in October with a detrimental stability of virtually $3,000. The board stated Hebner was the one individual with on-line entry to the account from December 2018 to January, court docket data state.
Officers reviewed the account’s statements and located funds to Hebner’s financial institution accounts, together with $34,000 to a Chase account and $11,000 to a Capital One account. Additionally they discovered $6,000 in checks written to Hebner, $36,000 in money withdrawals, $12,000 in Venmo funds, $5,000 in funds to Comcast, $2,000 in funds to TikTok and different miscellaneous transactions to firms, comparable to NW Pure Fuel and OnlyFans. The board stated all of these transactions had been unauthorized, court docket data state.
The affidavit stated police initially decided the full quantity lacking from the league’s checking account was $110,000, however a later court docket submitting exhibits additional investigation decided the theft totaled practically $104,000.
