The former senior transportation director for Wake County schools will spend at least seven years in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the school system of more than $3 million.

Vernon Hatley learned his fate Friday after a four-day hearing in which he tried to withdraw his guilty plea and get a trial by jury. A judge denied that request, and sentencing went forward under Hatley's guilty plea.

Wake Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens sentenced Hatley to between 44 and 62 months in prison for obtaining property by false pretenses and 40 to 57 months for conspiracy.

Stephens expressed astonishment at the kickback scandal.

"I just keep thinking, how in the world did this happen, with people treating the taxpayers' money as if they were 'Wheel of Fortune' contestants?" Stephens said before sentencing Hatley.

Hatley was punished for his role in a phony invoice scheme with employees at Barnes Motor & Parts Co. in Wilson. Hatley's attorney, Barry Nakell of Chapel Hill, maintained that his client was the unwitting dupe of one of his employees, Carol Dail Finch, the former budget analyst of the school system's transportation department.

Hatley oversaw that department from 2001 to 2004.

More than a half-dozen people have been accused in the scheme, which used fake invoices to illegally funnel public money to Barnes Motor & Parts Co. in exchange for personal items.

"You have been a good steward of delivering children to school on time. You have been a good steward of children's safety," Stephens told Hatley. "You have been a poor steward of the taxpayers' money. I don't subscribe to the theory that every man has his price, because men and women of principle don't have a price."

Stephens ordered Hatley to serve the sentences consecutively, meaning he could stay behind bars just one month short of 10 years.

'A trusting person'

Friends and family members described Hatley, 57, as an assertive, trusting individual who always went by the book. His older brother said that might have been his downfall.

"Vernon has always been a trusting person," his brother Lonnie G. Hatley, pastor of Barbee's Chapel Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, said Friday. "I think it is something that has come back to haunt him."

His family told the court about a natural-born leader who was quarterback of his high school football team in western Wake County. He started a gospel choir when he went to N.C. Agricultural and Technical University in Greensboro.

And they praised him as a retired Army colonel who worked in the Pentagon during Operation Desert Storm, got a loan so he could help his in-laws get indoor plumbing and taught the Bible to Wake County inmates after his arrest.

Hatley's good standing in the community and his character before the kickback scandal made a difference with the judge.

"I have to balance the good that Vernon Hatley has done his entire life with the bad that he has done in this case," Stephens said.

The judge also noted that in comparison to the millions of dollars that had been stolen from the Wake school coffers, Hatley did not benefit greatly from the scam.

Hatley admitted to accepting gifts worth $22,772.64, including new carpet for his home valued at $6,600.

Others implicated in the scheme made off with new cars, campers, Jet Skis, gift cards, a permanent campsite in Myrtle Beach and a cruise to Mexico.

Before sentencing, Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby argued for a tougher sentence, saying Hatley and his co-conspirators undermined public confidence in the school system.

"There has been considerable damage to Wake County schools far beyond the $3.8 million," Willoughby said. "Its effects will be felt for years to come."

Hatley was led from the courtroom in handcuffs after Stephens read his sentence.

Hatley pleaded guilty last fall to conspiracy and obtaining property by false pretenses. His attorney later asked that he be allowed to withdraw the plea and receive a jury trial, but Stephens rejected that request Wednesday.

Under the plea deal struck last fall, Hatley was to have been sentenced to five to 6 1/2 years in prison. But his request for a jury trial ended that deal, and Stephens was free to adjust the sentence.

Nakell said he might appeal.

"We are likely to appeal on the grounds that the judge applied the wrong standard in denying the motion to set aside the guilty plea," Nakell said.

(News researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)

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