The former chief of finance for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau will serve two-and-a-half years in prison for stealing more than $1 million from the nonprofit.
A federal judge in Baltimore also ordered Benjamin L. King to pay restitution of $1,145,940.25.
Prosecutors said King and a partner formed an office supply business that overcharged Legal Aid for materials and pocketed the excess. King, 58, and his accomplice, 59-year-old Wendell Jackson, stole from the organization through inflated purchase orders and invoices.
King was the head of finance for Legal Aid, a nonprofit that provides free legal services for people who can’t afford attorneys, from 1978 until January 2008. The fraud scheme began in the late 1990s, prosecutors said.
Jackson has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in the scheme.
