DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180530

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   68 lines

APOLOGETIC WOMAN MUST REPAY BURIAL FUNDS UNSWAYED JUDGE ORDERS HER TO 21 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR TAKING RETIREES' MUTUAL AID SAVINGS.

In a last-hour repentance Tuesday, Alexvina Weston Moye apologized to the victims of a death-benefits fraud that left dozens of elderly Naval Air Station retirees without burial funds.

Despite pleading guilty in May, Moye had consistently denied that she embezzled $63,000 from Mutual Aid Association, formed in the 1940s to help pay members' burial expenses. The organization was a type of private social security system funded by member dues.

Moye, 42, of Portsmouth, had a change of heart Tuesday just before she was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $200 a month until the entire $63,000 is repaid.

In federal court Tuesday, Moye said depression and a difficulty coming to grips with her crimes kept her from admitting what she had done.

``The pain and emptiness I have experienced all my life could only be a part of the devastation I inflicted on the survivors of the Mutual Aid Association,'' Moye told Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr., her voice breaking. ``I didn't intend to cause any pain . . . I understand the wrong and I'm sorry for all their pain.''

Clarke rejected her last-minute remorse, saying he did not believe she had accepted responsibility for her crimes. ``She's only admitting them with her attorney standing by her side,'' Clarke said.

At least 80 association members died without benefits during the three years Moye was office manager. Each member's family should have received about $1,200.

Moye's embezzlement did not cause the failure of Mutual Aid, which declared bankruptcy in 1993, but it hurried it along. Lack of oversight and proper investment, the number of aging members, and a lack of new members also caused its demise, court papers show.

About 400 members or their families have filed to collect their share of about $80,000 left in the account. The claims do not exclude any future restitution.

From 1989 to 1993, Moye collected about $208,000 in dues from members and paid out $180,000 in legitimate death benefits. She also wrote checks to herself and deposited them into her own account, sometimes putting the names of fictitious dead members on the memo line.

Even when confronted with bank documents, Moye continued to insist she had given the money to legitimate beneficiaries, FBI agent Richard Oberlander testified Tuesday.

Moye also told her probation officer, Charles Logan, that she used the cash to buy office supplies and to pay death benefits, Logan testified.

Prosecutor Alan M. Salsbury argued that the embezzlement continued over a long period and kept legitimate death benefits from families that needed them.

Defense attorney Walter B. Dalton said a history of personal tragedy caused Moye's depression and her difficulty in facing what she had done. Dalton said Moye's last-minute remorse was sincere.

Mutual Aid Association flourished into the 1960s, once achieving a membership of 3,000. Despite dwindling membership in later years, members continued to faithfully pay dues as they were assessed. The organization's mission was to ensure that no member died penniless, with families left unable to pay funeral expenses.

``This was a serious offense,'' Salsbury told the judge. ``This was not a single act. She wrote 90 to 100 checks over a period of years.'' ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

Alexvina Weston Moye said she embezzled $63,000, but didn't mean to

cause any pain. KEYWORDS: EMBEZZLEMENT ARREST TRIAL

SENTENCING

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