Jury finds Dancer guilty in embezzlement trial

William Dancer sat stone-faced Friday afternoon as the court clerk read off three guilty verdicts that could put him in prison for up to 30 years.

After three hours of deliberation a jury of one man and 11 women found the former Libby businessman guilty on all counts of felony theft by embezzlement.

Dancer’s attorney, Scott Hilderman, requested a polling of the jury. One-by-one each juror answered affirmatively to district court judge Michael Prezeau’s question, “Was this your verdict?”   

With exception to the media, only an alternate juror, who had been present for the entire five-day trial, and Dancer’s wife were in attendance.

“This wasn’t a classic criminal case,” Prezeau commented before excusing jurors, “which made it more difficult in many ways.”

Dancer kept more than $200,000 of homebuyer payments made out to his former employer, Sagle, Idaho-based Independence Home Center Inc. Dancer worked as Libby branch manager for the manufactured home supplier from late 2004 to October 2006, during which time he opened an unauthorized bank account in IHC’s name and deposited customer checks.

Dancer allegedly funneled the money into personal bank accounts to pay expenses for his other failing businesses. The prosecution accused him of hiding the theft by using future customers’ money to send cashier’s checks in the original customers’ name to IHC months after the original customers paid him the down payment on their new homes.

In Dancer’s March trial, which ended with a hung jury, prosecutors accused Dancer of embezzling over $400,000, about half of which IHC owners testified to later receiving in cashier’s checks. The prosecution dropped four embezzlement and money laundering charges a week before the re-trial, only charging Dancer for embezzling the three customer checks that IHC never recovered. 

In closing statements, Dancer’s defense described other possible scenarios to explain why IHC owners, Darwin “Bill” Brown, and his son, Michael Brown, accused Dancer of embezzlement.

Hilderman suggested that Michael Brown went into business with Dancer and had him establish a Libby branch to impress his father. Perhaps Michael Brown gave Dancer more authority than his father knew about, Hilderman suggested, allowing Dancer to act as owner of the Libby branch.

Dancer would then believe, in Hilderman’s scenario, that he was authorized to open his own IHC bank account and pay legitimate business expenses out of it. When Bill Brown caught on to the activity, Hilderman said, he would be angry and Michael Brown would deny that Dancer ever had the authority to act independently of the company.

Hilderman pointed out that it could have been a simple misunderstanding of what Dancer’s role was in the company. There was no documentation that recognized Dancer as an employee, a commissioned salesperson, a franchise owner or a subcontractor.

Whatever the scenario, Hilderman said, Dancer didn’t have the intent to deceive the Browns, so he was not guilty of embezzlement.

“If there is another possible explanation other than the one they (the Browns) testified to,” Hilderman said, “… that’s the very definition of reasonable doubt, and you must acquit.” 

Prosecutor Marcia Boris pointed out that if Dancer believed he was allowed to deposit customer checks into his own bank account, he would have sent the IHC office checks in his name, instead of cashier’s checks in the customers’ names.

“If Mr. Dancer was authorized,” Boris said, “he wouldn’t have had to lie or go to the lengths he did to hide it.”

Dancer is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 2.