SureWest embezzler gets three years

A Roseville man who pleaded guilty last year in a federal court for his role in the theft of $2 million from SureWest Communications was sentenced last week to three years in prison.Jeffrey Wells, a former senior treasury analyst with SureWest who had access to large amount's of the company's funds, was ordered earlier this month to surrender April 13 for confinement in a federal prison. The site Wells will be incarcerated has not yet been determined, said Rosemary Shaul of the U.S. Department of Justice office in Sacramento.In addition to the prison term, Wells was also ordered to pay $2 million in restitution, as well as forfeit any and all property he owns in Roseville, Shaul said.Wells had pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud. He could not immediately be reached for comment on the sentencing."We are satisfied with the sentence handed down in this case," said Steve Oldham, president and CEO of SureWest Communications, which is based in Roseville. "This issue has been behind us for several years."Wells and his father, Larry Joe Wells, and Henry M. Kaiser were involved in the scheme, in which the younger Wells reportedly illegally wired sums up to $25 million in January 2003 from SureWest to Quivira Ventures, a venture capital company owned by Larry Wells and Kaiser.Kaiser was sentenced to one year and one day and ordered to pay restitution of $2 million for his role in the thefts, which took place in 2003. The elder Wells has pleaded guilty to the crime, but has not yet been sentenced, Shaul said.In their pleas last year, the Wellses ad-mitted to avoiding auditors by putting the money back near the end of each fiscal quarter, then removing it again the day after.The transfers allowed Quivira to demonstrate to potential investors that it had sufficient funds to qualify for certain funding proposals.However, the scheme failed when Larry Wells and Kaiser couldn't retrieve $2 million of SureWest's money they had placed in a Luxem-bourg bank account.Jeffrey Wells re-signed his position in December 2003. A fi-nancial re-view of his work was conducted afterward; it was then the missing $2 million was noticed.Kaiser's grandfather, Henry J. Kaiser, founded what has become the nation's largest health maintenance organization, now known as Kaiser Permenante.The day after Kaiser and the Wellses were arrested, Mead Kaiser resigned his positions on the boards of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.Larry Wells, 63, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and two counts of engaging in transactions with criminally derived property.Kaiser, 62, pleaded guilty three years ago to interstate transportation of money obtained by fraud and conducting a monetary transaction with criminally derived property.