While it appears as though former sheriff candidate and Hollister police Sgt. Ray Wood will receive a fair penalty of six months in jail for embezzling from the officers’ union, it is also good to see that same union has addressed its lacking oversight on financial matters.
Wood recently accepted a plea deal on the grand theft charge and will be sentenced in April, likely to the six-month punishment.
Considering he has no prior criminal record – and that six months in jail is no walk in the park – the penalty should send a sufficient message while also carrying out an appropriate level of discipline for Wood’s actions. Wood will have to spend half a year in a place he probably never imagined possible before this all played out in early 2011 when retired and stirred suspicion of embezzling about $100,000 by refusing to share bank account information with other officers, as he left his long-held post as union president.
Prosecutors did a nice job of securing a conviction without letting the case drag out too long, and Wood deserves credit for owning up to his mistakes. He will have to live with them, especially in a small community like ours, for the rest of his life.
The embezzlement case, meanwhile, has sparked necessary change at the Hollister Police Officers Association. Its President David Anderson vowed last week that the organization has “changed the way we run business to make sure there’s more checks and balances.”
That is a good sign and should help prevent another similar embarrassment from ever happening again.
