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Man who fled US gets 5 years for stealing funds
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-07 15:11

LOS ANGELES - A man who stole more than $1 million from a hospital and fled to Thailand to start a new life has been sentenced in Los Angeles to five years in prison.

Gerald McAfee received the sentence Monday in federal court, several months after pleading guilty to stealing the money from a Downey hospital.

Authorities say McAfee used a stolen identity to get a job in 1985 as comptroller at College Hospital, where he embezzled more than $1 million into a brokerage account. The following summer he converted most of the funds to bearer bonds and fled to Europe.

A 2007 tip led FBI agents to Thailand, where McAfee apparently had married and had children under the name David K. Smyth.

The 66-year-old McAfee was indicted in absentia in 1987 on bank fraud, mail fraud and other charges.