■ Hearing pushed to December; judge: ‘get this case moving’

Solano County Judge Tim Kam on Friday continued the case against Kimble Goodman, accused April 16, 2013, of embezzling thousands of dollars from the Benicia Old Town Theatre Group.

Kam agreed to delay the case after hearing that Goodman’s latest public defender had not received all the bank documents filed as evidence.

The case will resume at 10 a.m. Dec. 5 with a readiness conference and Dec. 8 with a preliminary hearing at the Solano County Courthouse in Vallejo.

“We need to get this case moving,” Kam told both Deputy District Attorney Leo Mangoba, who said he thought all the documents from the theater group’s bank, Bank of the West, had been delivered, and public defender Jeannette Garcia, who said she discovered only last week that she hadn’t received one bank statement considered evidence in the case.

Garcia said she would need time to issue subpoenas related to the case, and asked for a four-week extension to do that and to review the case with her client.

Goodman, a career banker and former chairperson of the Benicia Economic Development Board who was also active with Benicia Historical Museum, the city’s criterium bicycle races and Solano County’s Democratic Party, had been a member of the theater group for about five years.

He had served as BOTTG’s treasurer since 2010. In March 2013, its board discovered that between $12,000 and $15,000 was missing from its accounts, BOTTG President Dan Clark has said.

After an investigation by Benicia police, the Solano County District Attorney’s office issued a felony warrant for Goodman’s arrest, accusing him of a single charge of embezzlement. He was arrested April 19, 2013.

Through his first attorney, Amy Morton, Goodman denied the accusation, indicating that the loss may have been related to negligent co-mingling of funds and wasn’t related to his own filing of Chapter 7 bankruptcy the previous January.

He was slated to enter his initial plea of innocence in May 2013. Since then, Goodman has had a succession of public defenders, leading to delays in advancing the case.

At a readiness conference Dec. 20, 2013, Goodman said he would plead no contest to the charge and begin paying restitution to BOTTG the next month. By then, Morton had been replaced by Dan Russo, who cited a conflict of interest and was replaced with public defender Damian Spieckerman. Garcia is his latest representative.

“I’m at a loss,” said Clark, among several BOTTG members in the courtroom Friday.

The company’s spokesperson, Dyanne Vojvoda, said, “We were so close to something. We have had no movement since last year.”

Goodman didn’t speak during or after Friday’s brief appearance.

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