By The San Francisco Chronicle
A former San Francisco prosecutor who inherited a role overseeing a multimillion-dollar trust has been sentenced to an 8 1/2-year prison term and ordered to repay the $52 million in trust funds he misappropriated and spent in just six months in Alaska, authorities said.
Mark Avery, 48, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money-laundering charges in federal court in Alaska in March 2007. After repeated delays, he was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline and immediately sent to federal prison.
Avery, who has filed for bankruptcy protection and most recently was living with relatives in Vallejo, worked as a prosecutor in San Francisco before he was fired by then-incoming District Attorney Terence Hallinan in 1996.
His father, Luther Avery, was one of the nation's pre-eminent trust attorneys. When the elder Avery died in 2001, Mark Avery inherited his role in charge of a charitable trust run out of San Francisco on behalf of the late May Smith, a wealthy widow.
Avery illegally borrowed against the trust and spent the money on a ragtag fleet of vintage war machines, including World War II planes and a fleet of fighter jets in Alaska, prosecutors said.
His attorney said he fell under the influence of Robert "Commander" Kane, a swashbuckling figure who convinced Avery that the fleet would be useful to foreign clients fighting rebel armies.The spending spree drew the attention of the FBI and Internal Revenue Service in Alaska, triggering the federal investigation. Smith suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in 2006 without knowing what had happened.
Avery spent the trust money in six months, but his defense lawyer has said he always intended to pay it back.
"Mark did not approach his position as trustee with the idea that he was going to steal $52 million from it," attorney D. Scott Dattan said. "That was not his intention when his father died."
Avery faced a minimum of 14 years in custody under federal guidelines, but government prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to a shorter term because he was cooperating with a continuing investigation into the trust fraud.
Steve Skrocki, the federal prosecutor, said there was no evidence Avery considered the money he took to be a loan.
"He took the money and kept taking it until there was no more left," Skrocki said. "He didn't stop at $10 million. He took the entire $50 million and then some. And no one checked him on it."
Skrocki said Avery had betrayed Smith and her trust. "None of the things he did was for her benefit," the prosecutor said.
