HAMILTON – A 40-year-old Stevensville woman who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a wildlife refuge has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on a separate felony embezzlement charge.
Twila Hallford pleaded guilty earlier this year to stealing $18,643 from her employer, Bitterroot Wireless. She acknowledged embezzling from cash payments deposited with the business between November 2008 and August 2009.
District Judge Jeffrey Langton sentenced Hallford on Wednesday to 25 years in prison with 15 years suspended.
Langton sentenced Hallford in 2004 to 20 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $340,000 from the privately run Teller Wildlife Refuge while she was the organization’s bookkeeper.
In 2005, a state Supreme Court sentence review panel reduced Hallford’s sentence to 10 years with seven years suspended. She was paroled in 2007.