Santa Rosa caretaker gets probation in $100,000 embezzlement

A judge Thursday sentenced a Santa Rosa caretaker to five years of probation but no immediate jail time for embezzling thousands of dollars from a disabled firefighter.

Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Jamie Thistlethwaite handed down the punishment to Kimberly Van Vorst, 47, saying she wanted her to remain free in order to repay the victim.

The sentence, which includes a suspended one-year jail term, drew a sharp response from ex-San Francisco firefighter Melanie Stapper, 55, of Guerneville, who yelled and bolted from the courtroom.

“Have fun with all my money, Kim!” she shouted as she stomped down the aisle before yelling an expletive.

Stapper claimed Van Vorst took more than $100,000 in 2012 when she worked for her, including an inheritance left by her late mother. Stapper suffered a brain injury and became legally blind in a 1995 fire in San Francisco’s Diamond Heights neighborhood that killed a fellow firefighter.

She relied on Van Vorst, a former Safeway deli counter clerk, to pay her bills and handle her finances. After Van Vorst quit, Stapper found out she had been funneling money to her own accounts.

Prosecutors said Van Vorst used the money for trips, gifts to inmates at the Sonoma County Jail and to buy methamphetamine.

Earlier this year, she pleaded no contest to four charges, including theft from a dependent adult, forgery and credit card crimes with an enhancement for taking more than $65,000.

Van Vorst faced up to five years in the county jail. Thistlethwaite gave her a year, but suspended it pending a July review to make sure she was living up to the conditions of probation.

She ordered her to begin paying $500 a month on June 1.

The judge said she was allowing her to remain free “because what I want you to focus on is restitution.”

Stapper sought the maximum sentence in an emotional statement to the judge in which she compared the theft to an assault.

“I don’t like the term rape, but I felt so violated,” she said.

However, Van Vorst’s lawyer said it was more complicated. Attorney Tim Flagerman suggested Stapper gave Van Vorst the money and was attempting to woo her with a trip to Las Vegas and to a San Francisco gay pride event.

At some point, he said Van Vorst rejected her.

“Nothing in life is black and white. Everything has gray to it,” Flagerman told the judge. “I would submit this case has a lot of gray in it.”

Stapper denied she was romantically involved with Van Vorst. At one point in the hearing she yelled, “Lies!”

Flagerman said Van Vorst is working at a Santa Rosa drug rehabilitation program she founded with a partner called Hope House. He asked that she be allowed to continue the work to pay back the ex-firefighter.

“Being locked in a gulag, a 10-by-10-square-foot room, accomplishes nothing for the victim,” Flagerman said.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch expressed disappointment with the sentence. She said she believed Van Vorst would be sent to jail at her July review hearing.

“This woman was particularly vulnerable due to injuries sustained in the line of duty,” Ravitch said. “Yet the court seemed to err on the side of the defendant rather than ceding to the victim’s request she be incarcerated.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com.