Mistrial declared in Dancer case, new trial likely
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
April 2, 2009
A mistrial was declared Monday afternoon when jurors in the William Dancer case announced they were hopelessly deadlocked and unable to reach a verdict.
The jury had deliberated for around five hours on Friday and another six hours on Monday. When the jurors threw in the towel around 3:30 p.m. Monday, Judge Michael Prezeau declared a mistrial and set a pre-trial conference for April 24 after prosecuting attorneys indicated they plan to continue to pursue their case against Dancer. A new trial could be held as early as June.
Dancer is charged with six counts felony theft by embezzlement and one count of money laundering. He is accused of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in customer payments through his own bank accounts while working as Idaho-based Independence Home Center’s local salesman in 2005 and 2006.
In her opening statements last Monday, Deputy County Attorney Marcia Boris characterized the case as one of "trust, opportunity and greed." Independence Home Center placed trust in Dancer, who saw an opportunity to fulfill his greed by taking money from home buyers for his own purposes, she said.
Boris accused Dancer of "playing a shuffle game" with customers’ money, relying on future home sales to cover up his thefts from prior sales.
"He was able to keep all of the balls in the air for some time, but eventually his actions caught up with him," she said.
Defense attorney Scott Hilderman, however, said the case was simply "a business dispute" stemming from a deal "between a couple of dunderheads" who didn’t put anything in writing. Independence Home Center manager Mike Brown set up a business deal with Dancer "to impress the old man" – his father, business owner Bill Brown – but failed to clarify Dancer’s status within the business, Hilderman argued.
"It was all passion and no smarts," he said.
Bill Brown testified that he started Independence Home Center in Sagle, Idaho, about 12 years ago and later opened a branch in Colville, Wash. In 2004, the business expanded with a small lot in Libby, with Dancer working there as a "commission-only salesman," Brown said.
Brown explained the mechanics of manufactured home financing to the jury. When a home is built, a finance company pays the manufacturer, he said. The dealer pays only the interest charges on the homes on its sales lots for up to one year. If the home has not sold in one year, payments on the principal begin. The full amount is paid off after a customer buys the home. Sometimes the customer pays the dealer, who pays off the finance company immediately, and sometimes the customer finances the purchase and the customer’s finance company makes payment after delivery is made.
Because interest is calculated daily, Dancer was to put payments from customers into a Federal Express envelope and send it to the main office in Sagle overnight, Brown said.
Except for a few emergency cases, Dancer was not to pay subcontractors directly for expenses related to moving and setting up homes, Brown said. Bills were to be submitted to the Sagle office, which would then pay the subcontractors.
Mike Brown testified that while Dancer had made some mistakes on his first sale, paying some of the subcontractors himself, he had corrected Dancer and was unaware of any problems until Oct. 9, 2006, when he received a call from home buyer Delores Webb, who said she had paid Dancer more than $97,000 for a home the previous May and was having problems with setup. Brown said he had no inkling that she had bought a home from Independence Home Center.
"I freaked," he said. "I was in total shock, absolutely freaked out."
Brown said he called Dancer, who told him Webb had Alzheimer’s disease and had just paid for the home the previous day, not months before. Brown said he knew that was untrue after calling Webb back the next day.
"She is one of the sharpest ladies I have ever met in my life," he said.
The day after his initial conversations with Webb and Dancer, Brown traveled to the Libby sales lot. Dancer admitted that Webb’s money was "gone," Brown said.
"He said, ‘It’s gone. It’s just gone.’" Brown said.
Dancer said there was more money missing – maybe $250,000, Brown said. Dancer said some of it went into his businesses in Libby – a clothing store and a dollar store – and some had gone into vehicles, Brown said.
"He asked me to give him two weeks, and he would pay it all back," Brown said.
Brown said he told Dancer he was going to the police.
"And that’s when he became violent," Brown said. "He came at me and took a swing at me."
Both Browns testified that Dancer never had authority to open accounts in Independence Home Center’s name or to cash checks made out to the business. According to an analysis by accountant Bob Denning, called as an expert witness by the prosecution, Dancer deposited more than $800,000 in customer payments into three different bank accounts he had opened in Libby. One account was in the name of "Affiliated Products," one in the name of "Smart Bucks" – Dancer’s dollar store on Mineral Avenue – and the third was in the name of "Independence Home Center." Funds were sometimes transferred from one account to another. Denning’s analysis indicated that while some of the money was used for expenses related to the home sales, such as paying off the financing company and paying subcontractors, more than $236,000 was unaccounted for.
Under cross examination, Denning acknowledged that much of the unaccounted for money could have been used for business-related expenses.
The charges against Dancer contend that he cashed or deposited in his own accounts payments from six customers between September 2005 and September 2006. In some cases, the company that financed the homes was paid off months after the customer made payment, and in other cases no payments were made, according to Denning’s testimony.
Several customers testified to lengthy delays and problems with their purchases that prevented them from moving in for months after they had initially planned. In her closing arguments, Boris noted that those payments were made at the point Dancer’s employers would have expected had the customers financed their purchases.
Hilderman called only three witnesses – an accountant who testified that Dancer may have been shorted on some commissions and that Independence Home Center underreported his income to the federal government, a man who said he had been hired by Dancer to work at the Libby sales lot, and a detective from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office who reviewed records of vehicles owned by Dancer and his wife to refute testimony from several witnesses that Dancer had been driving what appeared to be a brand new pickup truck. Dancer himself did not testify, and Hilderman told the jury that he did not have to testify because the prosecution had not proven its case.
The prosecution failed to "follow the money," Hilderman said.
"There is no evidence that Mr. Dancer ever profited from anything that happened at Independence Home Center," he said. "None. Zero."
Any missing money may have been the result of bad business decisions, Hilderman said. He pointed to the fact that Dancer had hired several people to work for him at the sales lot as evidence that Dancer saw himself as more of a partner in the business than a mere employee.
"What employee hires employees?" Hilderman asked.
Boris countered that the prosecution did not have to prove where the money went and that the jury had only to conclude that Dancer had exerted unauthorized control over customers’ checks to find him guilty of embezzlement.
The only thing Dancer was authorized to do with those checks was to "put them in a FedEx envelope and overnight them to Sagle," she said.
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Editor’s Note: See the March 31, 2009 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, now on Tuesday, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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