“One of the dumbest…crimes in Arizona state history”

By Craig Smith

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    TUCSON, Arizona (KGUN) — More than 38 million dollars stolen from taxpayers. No one disputes the former treasurer of Santa Cruz County stole that money. Elizabeth Gutfahr is due for sentencing Monday. Her attorney is offering an explanation for what she did.

“One of the dumbest, ill-conceived, short-sighted, and most audacious crimes in Arizona state history, “ that’s Elizabeth Gutfahr’s own attorney talking about her theft of more than 38 million dollars in money that belonged to Santa Cruz County taxpayers. For the first time documents in the case offer an explanation of what led her to steal all that money.

In the eight months since Elizabeth Gutfahr stood in Tucson federal Court and pleaded guilty to embezzlement and tax evasion she’s been waiting for sentencing and helping Santa Cruz county sell off real estate, livestock and fancy cars to try to recover some of the stolen money.

In a memo to the Federal Judge in the case, Gutfahr’s attorney Josh Hamilton has argued for sentencing her to the low end of the range agreed to in the plea bargain.

The defense and the prosecutors agreed to a range between five and a quarter to six and a half years in prison, plus three years on probation.

Here’s a direct quote from what Gutfahr’s attorney told the Judge:

“Ms. Gutfahr committed one of the dumbest, ill-conceived, short-sighted, and most audacious crimes in Arizona state history. Her scheme was not well-planned. She made no real effort to conceal her actions. Even a cursory review of financial records or publicly available information would have quickly uncovered her crimes.”

But the thefts went undiscovered for about ten years. Voters knocked two Santa Cruz County Supervisors out of office after the scandal came out.

Part of the defense sentencing recommendation to the judge says:

“Ms. Gutfahr had no business ever becoming the Treasurer in the first place.”

In another section it says, “She was a person suffering from severe depression and diminished capacity who was elected to run the county treasury without any real business experience or training in finance.”

Gutfahr’s attorney says she thought she was basically borrowing money to build an ideal life for her family.

He says, “Ms. Gutfahr deluded herself into a pipedream whereby she thought she could borrow surplus funds to establish successful real estate and cattle businesses and then repay the money with everyone (her family included) being none the wiser. It was obviously an illegal and ill-conceived idea, but Ms. Gutfahr was not thinking clearly.”

But school districts and fire districts that depend on a share of taxes Santa Cruz County collects say they will be badly hurt by what Gutfahr did

Nogales schools alone told prosecutors they lost more than 11.2 million dollars and they expect to recover just a fraction of that money.

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