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*** M-I-C . . . see you in 3 years . . . K-E-Y . . . Why, 'cause I just had to have it:
Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie has certainly grown up from her days in the 1950's, where she served as a youthful role-model on "The Mickey Mouse Club." Now Darlene, 56, has been busted along with her fiancé for carrying out a Mickey-Mouse shoplifting operation. Convicted of stealing a food processor and clothing from Macy's, Darlene will now be on probation for three years.
She didn't stop there, though, Walt.
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"Disney on Ice"
ALEJANDRO N. MAYORKAS
United States Attorney
Central District of California
Thom Mrozek, Public Affairs Officer
(213) 894-6947
March 11, 1999
FORMER "MOUSEKETEER" SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS
IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE,
PERJURY CONVICTIONS RELATED TO SECURITIES FRAUD
One of the original members of "The Mickey Mouse Club" was sentenced late this afternoon to 24 months in federal prison for commiting[sic] securities fraud and then lying to federal investigators about the scheme, United States Attorney Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced.
Darlene Gillespie, 57, was found guilty in December by a federal jury in Los Angeles that determined the former Mouseketeer lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was investigating her role in a "free riding" scheme in which she and her partner had ordered stocks without the intention or means of paying for the shares.
Gillespie was convicted of one count of conspiracy, six counts of securities fraud, three counts of mail fraud, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury for lying to the
SEC...
Not Mickey Mouse, US$827,000 this time, Walt.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr/055.htm
...
It didn't end there, either. Look at this story off the AP wire from New York:
Former Mousekeeter with troubled history is charged again
November 4, 2005, 4:34 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) _ A former Mouseketeer with a history of legal troubles was hit with fresh charges Friday when the FBI said she tried to defraud a company out of nearly $320,000 in class-action settlement funds.
Darlene Gillespie, 64, of Oxnard, Calif. was to be arraigned on a mail-fraud charge Friday in federal court in Southern California.
An FBI criminal complaint said Gillespie and her partner Jerry Fraschilla submitted a series of false claims to the Long Island-based administrator of a fund established to settle a class-action lawsuit against a measurement equipment company. A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office, which filed the complaint, said he had no additional information about the case.
An attorney whom prosecutors in Los Angeles said was representing Gillespie did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Gillespie was one of the nine original Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club show from 1955-59. Disney publicists said she had "more bounce to the ounce than a bottle of a soda pop." She was featured in "Corky and White Shadow," a serial about the Wild West exploits of a girl and her heroic dog.
After a try at a country singing career, she has had a history of run-ins with authorities, including a conviction for helping Fraschilla buy stocks with bad checks. She was sentenced to a two-year prison sentence in that case in 1999.
Two years before that, she and Fraschilla were convicted of shoplifting at a California department store.
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