[12/2/03]The Vicksburg woman who admitted taking $637,855 from two federal agencies over a 4 1/2-year period was sentenced to 33 months in a federal prison on Monday, despite requests that she receive probation.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bramlette III ordered Debra Strickland, 45, to report to a Florida facility next month after three witnesses, including her husband, pleaded for leniency.

Strickland pleaded guilty Aug. 4 to embezzling public money from 1998 until earlier this year while serving as treasurer of the Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, a cooperative nonprofit organization of state and federal agencies established in 1994.

The committee has an annual budget of about $155,000, but received more than $700,000 in grant money from other agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.

As treasurer of the conservation committee, Strickland had authority to handle all money deposited into its account, said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Dowdy, but it’s not clear how she converted the money to herself or why no one missed the money for nearly five years.

In addition to serving prison time, Strickland was ordered to three years of supervision after her release. She must also participate in a mental health program for gambling problems and was ordered not to accrue any more debt or apply for more credit cards.

Bramlette also ordered Strickland to repay the $637,855 in $500 monthly installments. Without interest, that would take more than 106 years.

Dowdy said if Strickland ever comes into a large sum of money, the government will be able to claim more than the monthly $500.

“I am anxious to make restitution,” Debra Strickland said. “I may never do it, but I’ll make every attempt to.”

Bramlette said even though the presentence investigation showed Strickland had a gambling problem, he found no reason to give a lesser sentence.

“This case is particularly regrettable because we have a federally funded agency that has been victimized,” Bramlette said.

John Harmand, a licensed clinical social worker and friend of Strickland’s, testified that he believed Strickland suffered from pathological gambling problems and chronic depression.

“Each case is different,” he said. “In the case of Ms. Strickland, the case is sickness.”

Charles Strickland testified that his wife was remorseful, and since admitting to stealing taxpayer money, she had joined a church, began seeing a counselor and quit smoking. He also said Strickland gave a substantial portion of her $20,000 federal retirement payout, received when she lost her job, to her two sons in college.

“She felt it was a last-ditch effort to do something for her children,” Charles Strickland said.

Debra Strickland said $12,000 of her pension payout also went toward covering a bad check at a Vicksburg casino.

Charles Baxter, a coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and one of Strickland’s three former bosses, said Strickland received an official reprimand and was suspended without pay for five days in November 2000 for abusing a government credit card.

Under the judge’s order, she will report to the federal prison in Marianna, Fla., at noon Jan. 6.