Faye Slice sent to prison

By The Associated Press - 02/18/2006

MISSOULA (AP) _ The former director of the Butte Jazz Society was sentenced Friday to six years in prison and was ordered to pay $108,500 in restitution for lying on applications to obtain loans.

Faye Slice, 44, was also sentenced to five years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.

Slice pleaded guilty in October to lying on loan applications, making false statements to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and mail fraud. Prosecutors said the charges involved loans to renovate a former church in Butte for the Butte Jazz Society in 2001 and 2002.

Slice provided false information, including a forged signature, to First National Bank to get a $21,017 loan, and to Glacier Bank to get an $18,000 loan.

The mail fraud charge involved false information Slice sent to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to receive $150,000 in funding.

She also provided false information while applying for a $135,000 loan from the USDA. Prosecutors said she intended to use the money for other purposes.

The Butte church has since been purchased by a theater group.

Slice was convicted in 1987 of 12 felonies for swindling businesses and charities of nearly $53,000.

She also wrote several thousand dollars in bad checks on a business account, and in 1994, she pleaded guilty in Billings to felony deceptive practices, admitting she used her former sister-in-law's Social Security number to obtain credit cards and charged $5,000 to them.