Ex-Owner of Cemetery Pleads Guilty in $500,000 Embezzlement
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The former owner of a historic Long Beach cemetery pleaded guilty Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court to embezzling more than $500,000 from a graveyard endowment fund.
Dean A. Dempsey, 43, faces up to five years in prison for his management of Sunnyside Cemetery’s finances between 1988 and 1994.
State officials began investigating the Los Angeles man in 1994 after complaints that the grounds at Sunnyside had fallen into disrepair. At that time he said that interest from the endowment, once totaling more than $1 million, was insufficient to maintain the cemetery where some of the city’s most prominent historical figures were buried.
Dempsey’s sentencing is set for Sept. 12.
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