Accountant gets 24-year term for embezzling from foundation
ALAMORDO, N.M. (AP) — An Alamogordo accountant faces 24 years in prison for embezzling approximately $1.8 million from a foundation that provided scholarships to high school graduates and for tax fraud.
A state District Court judge on Thursday sentenced Marion Ledford, 68, after he pleaded no contest to one count of embezzlement and three of tax fraud.
Ledford will serve the bulk of his 24-year state sentence after he completes a concurrent 18-month sentence he received in February after previously pleading guilty to tax evasion in a related federal case, the District Attorney's Office for the 12th Judicial District said in a statement.
Ledford formerly was CFO of the Robert W. Hamilton Foundation in Alamogordo.
District Attorney Scot D. Key said Ledford wrote dozens of foundation checks to himself and admitted “to controlling the finances of the foundation with no oversight and was able to carry on this pattern for at least five years, from 2011 to 2016."
Ledford pleaded guilty in November 2019 in the federal case arising out of the embezzlement and was sentenced in February.
In the federal case, Ledford was ordered to pay $2.4 million of restitution, including $1,75,300 to the foundation and nearly $629,300 to the Internal Revenue Service.