Executive Surrenders, Pleads Guilty in Embezzlement Case

GLENDALE — A former title company executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge that he embezzled more than $508,000 from accounts he controlled at a Glendale title company.

Wearing a green T-shirt and baggy white slacks, Charles Leon Scott, 55, of Chatsworth, entered his plea before Municipal Judge Barbara Lee Burke, just hours after surrendering Tuesday morning.

He was released on his own recognizance and is to return to court July 22 for sentencing.

Under the deal, Scott agreed to a sentence of three years and four months in state prison. He also must pay $508,599 in restitution to Glendale-based Stewart Title Co., his former employer, Deputy Dist. Atty. Brent Lewis said. Scott had faced a maximum of five years in prison.

As the firm’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, Scott had access to accounts from which he made 16 fraudulent withdrawals--ranging from $9,000 to about $84,000--from 1989 to late 1992, Lewis said.

The practice stopped at about that point, authorities said, and Scott was terminated about two years later, in December 1994, because of a management change.

But it was not until an internal audit that the missing funds were discovered, company attorney Jerald E. Gale said. The firm filed a lawsuit against Scott in June 1995 that ultimately led to the criminal investigation and is aimed at recovering all of the embezzlement losses linked to Scott--some $800,000, Gale said.

Scott’s attorney, R. Wayne McMillan, said his client does not have enough to pay more than about a third of the $500,000 restitution.