Dancer avoids prison: Heart problems play into judge's decision

Convicted embezzler William Dancer, 53, won’t spend time in prison for stealing $237,000 from his former employer, Sagle, Idaho-based Independence Home Center Inc., over three years ago.

District Court Judge Michael Prezeau on Friday gave Dancer a 20-year suspended sentence for three convictions of felony theft by embezzlement, remarking that if not for Dancer’s medical condition, he probably would be facing prison time.

“Honestly, if you weren’t facing these heart problems and there wasn’t a prospect that I’d be sentencing the taxpayers of the state to be picking up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills it might be a different story,” Prezeau said after handing down his sentence.

Dancer suffered a heart attack Dec. 8, two days before his scheduled sentencing. His doctor wrote a letter to the court, explaining that if his heart does not heal, he may need a pacemaker. The doctor also added that, due to his age, Dancer might in the future be eligible for a heart transplant.

The probation office’s presentence investigation suggested Dancer serve three years in prison and seven years suspended, as well as pay court costs and $198,698 in restitution. Prezeau ordered that Dancer pay the restitution, noting that he was actually convicted of stealing more than that, and declined to order Dancer to pay court costs.

“Due to his heart condition, it’s not something we didn’t expect because of the expenses to the State of Montana,” IHC owner Darwin William “Bill” Brown said afterward. “Our main concern was that there would be something there so that he couldn’t do this to someone else. I don’t want him to have another victim out there like us.”

After avoiding the witness stand through two trials last year – one in March that was declared a mistrial and one in September – Dancer took the stand Friday morning, defending himself in a barely audible voice from Prezeau’s line of questioning.

Prezeau asked Dancer about the circumstances of a previous felony conviction in Colorado Springs, Colo. Dancer paid restitution and received a three-year deferred sentence for writing a bad check for what Dancer said was for about $1,500 or $1,600. Prezeau also prodded Dancer about being fired from a car dealership in Wyoming for reportedly doing side deals without his employer’s knowledge.

“It seems like a pattern to me,” Prezeau pointed out.

Dancer replied, “I’ve made some mistakes.”

IHC, a manufactured home supplier, hired Dancer in 2004 to establish a branch in Libby. Dancer reportedly opened a local bank account in IHC’s name, deposited customer checks intended for down payments on homes, and used the money to keep his two separate businesses, Smart Bucks dollar store and Myra’s Attic clothing store, financially afloat.

When Michael Brown, IHC manager and Bill Brown’s son, confronted him in the fall of 2006, Dancer moved to Spokane, Wash. Before he was arrested and extradited, he became the financing manager at a car dealership. Currently, Dancer employs his teenage son and two other people in a business that sells coupon books. 

“They (the Browns) were counting on you to get their business off the ground. It could have been a win-win situation, but you got too greedy and in doing so, you betrayed the trust that they put into you,” Prezeau said. “And it worries me that you went to Spokane and you get involved in what seems to be the same kind of dangerous situation.”

Prezeau admonished Dancer of the consequences of re-offending.

“You can call these only property crimes but you stole a lot of money here, and that money represents a lot of hard work by other people,” Prezeau said. “… You have to be careful because you did rip the Browns off and you’re not going to rip someone else off in the future and avoid imprisonment, I promise you that.”