Man gets more than 4 years in prison for embezzlement

Washoe District Judge Jim Hardesty handed down the sentence Friday to Craig Walters, who allegedly had a gambling problem.

Prosecutors said Walters began embezzling from Nevada Orthopedics and Rehabilitation only days after being placed on probation for embezzling from West Hills Hospital.

He embezzled about $60,000 from the private hospital and $165,000 from the orthopedic group, said Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Roy Stralla.

"All too frequently business or white-collar crime slides by," Hardesty said. "They want to make restitution but not do the time. That has to stop in this community and it will stop with this case.

"What I see here is a situation in which for a number of years the criminal justice system accommodated your pleas for leniency and compassion repeatedly."

Walters wept as he asked Hardesty to show mercy, and family members wrote letters asking the judge not to hurt them by sending Walters to prison.

But it was Walters who hurt his family, Hardesty said.

"The pain that this has inflicted on your family is devastating," he said.

Stralla said Walters gave nearly half of the $165,000 he embezzled from the orthopedic group to charitable concerns, including youth sports teams.

"He wasn't stealing money to feed his kids," Stralla said. "He was stealing money to feed his own ego, to look like a big shot in the community."

Defense lawyer Larry Digesti said that in the West Hills case, Walters inherited money from his father and used it to pay restitution rather than gambling it.

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