Woman who stole $600K from Honda dealership seeks early release from prison

YOUNGSTOWN — The woman who stole more than $600,000 from the Honda Store in Boardman, while serving as its office manager, is asking a judge to release her less than halfway through her four-year prison sentence.

Debra L. Chance, 42, of New Middletown, is asking Judge R. Scott Krichbaum to set her free, but J. Michael Thompson, an assistant county prosecutor, said she should serve her entire prison term.

In a motion for judicial release filed by her lawyers, Charles E. Dunlap and Douglas B. Taylor, Chance said she has been rehabilitated during the prison time she’s already served and that her two daughters “are in dire need of their mother.”

Chance, who is at the Franklin Medical Center, has been imprisoned since February 2011, when Judge Krichbaum sentenced her.

“Her efforts at rehabilitation should not outweigh the principles of punishment, deterrence and restitution,” Thompson wrote in his response to the early-release motion. “Each of those principles indicates that the defendant should continue to serve her sentence as imposed.”

He added the victim “strenuously opposes this defendant’s release at this time.”

Chance seeks a judicial release hearing with her in attendance.

The court schedule does not show any such hearing, and Judge Krichbaum has not yet ruled on Chance’s motion.