Promoter Pleads No Contest in Embezzlement

TARZANA — A Tarzana promoter accused of embezzling $30,000 from the Los Angeles Police Department's fund for widows and orphans of slain officers and $44,000 from celebrities including Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, pleaded no contest Wednesday.

William Patrick Bentley, 39, was ordered by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry to spend 90 days at the California Department of Corrections facility in Chino to undergo a diagnostic study before his Dec. 13 sentencing for 11 felony counts, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Kraut.

Bentley faces a maximum of eight years in state prison.

Bentley pleaded no contest to two grand theft and nine forgery counts stemming from the theft of $44,000 from Reynolds, Anderson, the Suarez Corp. and other victims in 1996. In 1998 and 1999, authorities said, he took $30,000 from the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation.

Kraut said Bentley had been hired as the first paid coordinator of the Memorial Foundation's annual Police-Celebrity Gold Tournament held to raise money for the fund.