AUGUSTA — A former Winslow woman has been ordered to serve 18 months in prison for embezzling more than $10,000 from the Winslow Wrestling Boosters Club and $300 from the China Girls’ Field Hockey Team and for stealing more than $60,000 in public assistance benefits.

Wendi Pond, 42, formerly known as Wendi Willette and Wendi Thompson, now of Whitefield, New Hampshire, was sentenced Thursday at a hearing in the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.

Justice Michaela Murphy imposed a four-year prison term, ordering Pond to serve 18 months immediately and suspending the remainder of the four-year term. The jail time is to be followed by four years of probation.

“I am truly ashamed of what I have done,” Pond said, telling the judge it was a result of abuse she suffered from her ex-husband. “At the time, my head was not there.”

Both she and her attorney, Randy Robinson, asked for a delay in beginning the jail sentence.

“I am willing to take my full responsibility and punishment for what I deserve,” Pond said, adding, “I would like to do my health first.”

Robinson said his client has medical ailments and anticipates having to have portions of her stomach removed.

“Certainly she is not a prime candidate to endure prison right now,” he said.

He said she has shown up for all the hearings in this case, even those that were canceled, “in spite of being destitute and living in New Hampshire.”

Murphy denied the request for a delay, saying the prison system has facilities that could handle Pond’s needs and that medical documentation requested by the court hadn’t been provided.

Pond was ordered to pay restitution of $41,981.41 to the Department of Health and Human Services, $18,466 to the Social Security Administration and $840 to the Maine State Housing Authority.

Restitution remaining for the Winslow Wrestling Boosters is $3,125, according to District Attorney Maeghan Maloney. She told the judge on Thursday that two people representing the sports groups were in the courtroom, but they didn’t want to speak to the judge directly or be named in court.

Pond already has paid $5,300 in restitution.

Assistant Attorney General Darcy Mitchell told the judge Pond’s sentence was comparable to that imposed in similar cases.

“She stole from three government agencies and at the same time two private entities,” Mitchell said.

Robinson told the judge, “It’s a lot better than the 10 years it could have been.”

The most serious charges carried maximum prison terms of 10 years. He said he would have preferred Pond receive a lesser period of initial incarceration.

“Despite the fact that she screwed up, these aren’t violent crimes,” Robinson said.

When Pond, then known as Thompson, pleaded guilty to the theft charges almost five months ago, she brought a $5,000 restitution payment and agreed to repay the $300 owed to the China field hockey team by March 7. Attorneys said any restitution paid beyond that could lessen the 12 to 18 months she is expected to serve behind bars.

When she was indicted, Pond, then known as Willette, faced charges that she had stolen more than $10,000 from the Winslow Wrestling Booster Club between Sept. 1, 2010, and July 31, 2013, and $300 from the China Girls Field Hockey Team from Sept. 1 to 17, 2013.

She also had been indicted on a charge that she received money from food stamps, MaineCare and another assistance program between Dec. 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2013. In her applications, she indicated she and her two sons were the only occupants of her China Road home and she had no income other than Social Security disability payments.

That indictment said Willette intentionally failed to disclose that her husband was living at the home and contributing financially to the household. It also said she filed a false 2011 property tax bill with the state on March 6, 2012.

At the sentencing hearing, Mitchell said some of the fraud was uncovered after Willette Thompson’s then-husband, Paul Willette, learned that she was receiving state benefits.

Mitchell previously said Pond’s ex-husband told officials in September 2013 that he had been living with the family in the China Road home, that he was steadily employed as a truck driver for a food distribution firm, that he never made less than $55,000 a year and that the money went into a joint account.

Mitchell said records show that in June 2007 the couple bought property on China Road, built a $70,000 mobile home and two years later obtained a town permit to install a deck and a pool.

At the same time, Mitchell said, Willette regularly filled out applications for state aid, saying she and her two children lived alone, received no support from her husband and had a zero balance in her bank account.

Willette applied for and received $840 from Maine State Housing’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and at one point sought assistance with paying a 2011 property tax bill that she altered to remove her husband’s name, Mitchell told the judge.

Mitchell said state benefit payments to Willette were calculated at $41,989 for Department of Health and Human Services assistance in the form of food stamps and MaineCare, $840 for Maine State Housing and $18,456 in Supplemental Security Income.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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