Courtesy Franklin News Post

Stephen Flora (left), shown with attorney Will Davis, paid $1,000 in restitution to his former employer.

A former Franklin County School Board member has avoided serving jail time for an embezzlement conviction, though he'll have a suspended sentence of four years in prison hanging over him.

Tuesday, the same day he was sentenced in Franklin County Circuit Court, Stephen Douglas Flora paid off his court costs and $1,000 he owed in restitution to his former employer, Penhook Minute Mart.

Henry County Commonwealth's Attorney Bob Bushnell, the special prosecutor in the case, said Friday that the store's owner, Danny Perdue, asked for only $1,000 in restitution, though the prosecutor said he was certain he could have proven a much larger amount was taken. Bushnell called Perdue "an extremely decent and generous man."

Perdue didn't want Flora and his family to suffer financial hardship, though he did want the crime exposed, Bushnell said. According to court evidence, Flora took hundreds of dollars from the store, where he worked as a manager, over 10 years.

Flora, 54, indicated to Bushnell that he would plead guilty to the embezzlement charge even before he was indicted April 1, the prosecutor said. He resigned from the school board in March after 14 years of service, and formally entered that plea April 11.

In addition to the suspended sentence and three years probation, Judge William Alexander ordered Flora to serve 250 hours of community service over the next year.

"It's just a reputation squandered, utterly squandered," Bushnell said. He said he told Flora in court that he's still young enough that over time "he can hopefully by good conduct and true repentance redeem himself in the eyes of the community."