The Kidder County emergency manager will not serve jail time for stealing around $9,000 from the Steele Volunteer Fire Department's charitable gaming fund.

Carla Houghton, 51, received a four-year deferred imposition of sentence from South Central District Judge Sonna Anderson on Wednesday afternoon at the Burleigh County Courthouse. Anderson also ordered her to pay $9,000 in restitution and $525 in court fees during her four years of supervised probation.

Adeferred sentence means Houghton will not have the theft conviction on her criminal record if she successfully completes her probation. If her probation gets revoked during those four years, Anderson could resentence her to up to the maximum penalty, which is five years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines.

"This is your one chance to not have that on your record," Anderson said.

Houghton pleaded guilty to Class Cfelony theft of property on June 4 as part of a binding plea agreement between her attorney, Rauleigh Robinson, and Kidder County State's Attorney Jerod Tufte. The plea agreement called for Houghton to spend no more than 30 days in jail.

Tufte and Robinson agreed on the $9,000 restitution amount. Tufte said $9,000 would cover what was still missing from the fund and the money it took to investigate the fund's bank records.

Tufte urged Anderson to impose jail time Wednesday. He said Houghton only came forward that she had been taking and repaying money from the fire department's charitable gaming funds when she found out the funds would be audited. He said she has seen what money can buy the department during her many years as a first-responder and her service as the county's emergency manager.

"I think that's a violation of trust to the community," he said.

Robinson said Houghton's years of community service in Steele and Kidder County should speak for her character. He said Houghton considered the money she took a "loan" and had attempted to pay it back by not giving herself a paycheck for 10 of 24 months in 2005 and 2006.

"She was trying to get the money paid back, and she was paying it back at a fairly rapid pace,"he said.

Houghton was charged for taking $9,000 from the Steele Volunteer Fire Department's charitable gaming fund since 2004. Tom Dahl, a special agent for the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, testified at a May 7 preliminary hearing that Houghton told him in January that she had been taking and repaying small amounts of money from the fund from 1991 to 2004.

Dahl said Houghton told him she had been unable to repay the money taken from the fund since 2004.

Robinson said Houghton and her family had financial problems, which he said did not excuse her taking the money but did explain it.

"Circumstances certainly sometimes give you an explanation of why it was done," he said.

Robinson pointed out 12 character reference letters written on Houghton's behalf, most of which spoke about her volunteerism in the community and her church. He said she is on the county ambulance squad, and having a felony on her record may prohibit her from performing that duty.

"The interests of society would be served" by a deferred sentence, Robinson said."I think we've got somebody who made a mistake, but it's not somebody we should throw away."

Houghton said she never intended to deprive anyone.

"I apologize to the court and to my community," she said.

Anderson said the case was not an easy one to sentence.

"Stealing is stealing," she said. "You're taking things that don't belong to you."

She said Houghton, because of her volunteer work and attempts at repaying the money, is not the type of person the judge usually has to sentence for theft.

"The letters of support … are exemplary, indicating that you have done a lot of good things," Anderson said. "And you've done this bad thing."

Anderson said she did not want to appear to be going easy on Houghton and pointed out that she felt the most important thing is for the restitution to get paid back to the fire department.

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@;bismarcktribune.com.)