
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 2, 1994                   TAG: 9412020071
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EMBEZZLER HEADS TO PRISON

Susan Stone, the former Martinsville banker who embezzled nearly $5 million from the accounts of an elderly textile heiress, began serving her four-year prison sentence Thursday.

U.S. Marshal Larry Mattox said Stone reported to the women's federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va.

If federal prisons were cars, Alderson would be a Cadillac. Few prisons are as nice as the one located just over the Virginia border, about two hours from Roanoke.

"It's like a college campus, basically," Mattox said.

The prison's 1,100 inmates - most there for drug-related crimes, fraud or embezzlement - live in brick cottages that look like college dorms. Most cottages and prison buildings are named after famous women, including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony. Inmates share rooms.

Bobbie Gwinn, a prison spokewoman, said inmates at Alderson are allowed to wear their own clothes. It's not uncommon to see a prisoner sporting a stylish sweater and jeans.

The Alderson prison was thrust into the national spotlight in 1979, when Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco in 1975, escaped along with another prisoner for four hours. Afterward, Moore was transferred to another prison.

In a case of deja vu, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of mass murderer Charles Manson, escaped from Alderson in 1987 while serving a life sentence for a 1975 assassination attempt on Ford in Sacramento, Calif., 17 days before Moore shot at the president. Fromme was recaptured on Christmas, two days after she scaled the 8-foot chain-link fence that is the only barrier between the prisoners and freedom. She, too, was transferred to another prison shortly after her escape.

Alderson has been home to other famous inmates: Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally were imprisoned there for treason in the 1950s; blues singer Billie Holiday served time in the 1940s on a narcotics charge.

Gwinn said all the inmates at Alderson are required to work. Among the jobs available are teacher's aide, law librarian and financial clerk. Pay ranges from 12 cents to 40 cents an hour, Gwinn said.

Stone, 45, diverted $4.9 million from the trust accounts of Lucy Pannill Sale, the daughter of Pannill Knitting's founder and the widow of former Sale Knitting President E.A. Sale.

Stone was sentenced last month to four years in prison. There is no parole in the federal prison sentence, but Stone could have up to seven months trimmed from her sentence for good behavior.

by CNB