Sausalito resident Mark Anderson, who is accused of embezzling thousands of dollars worth of wine from his clients at Sausalito Cellars, walks toward a court appearance at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael on March 27, 2007. (IJ photo/Frankie Frost)
A Sausalito wine embezzler blamed for a $200 million arson fire has been granted early release from prison because of mounting health problems.
Mark C. Anderson, 73, will be moved from the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island, in Los Angeles to a Sacramento care home near UC Davis Medical Center. The Saint Vincent de Paul Society will cover his rent until his Social Security benefits kick in, according to a Sept. 30 court order granting his release.
Anderson, who owned Sausalito Cellars on Marinship Way, came under scrutiny when customers reported that bottles Anderson was supposed to store for them were missing from his inventory.
Investigators determined that approximately 7,600 bottles went missing between 2001 and 2004. In 2005, Anderson, a former Sausalito parks and recreation commissioner, was charged with embezzling more than $1 million worth of wine and selling it for his own profit.
Later in 2005, Anderson set fire to Wines Central, a warehouse on Mare Island in Vallejo where he stored the wine of clients, authorities said. Investigators said it was an attempt to cover up what he had done to his own inventory.
Anderson destroyed 6 million bottles of wine — worth roughly $200 million — from 92 wineries, including entire inventories from some smaller wineries. Anderson “put lives at risk to cover his tracks,” U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said at the time of Anderson’s 2007 indictment in the fire.
After initially taking a plea deal for arson, fraud and tax evasion in 2009, Anderson tried to withdraw his guilty plea in 2011. He argued that his former attorney had been unprepared and misled him into agreeing to the plea deal.
A judge refused Anderson’s request. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2012 and ordered to pay $70.3 million in restitution.
Anderson tried to appeal his conviction twice, in 2015 and again in 2019, to no avail, according to court records.
Anderson has been asking for compassionate release since 2020, citing mounting health concerns and fears of being exposed to COVID-19.
In April, Anderson’s attorney, Stephanie Adraktas, wrote that her client had been repeatedly hospitalized and suffered pneumonia and acute respiratory failure, on top of ongoing issues such as congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, sepsis and kidney disease.
Anderson also continues to suffer from a back injury from a train wreck in the late 1990s and requires monitoring following a cancer diagnosis, even though his cancer is in remission, according to his proposed release plan.
Prosecutors opposed his early release.
“Anderson committed serious and brazen crimes that ruined livelihoods and put lives at risk,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Stefanki wrote to the court in April. “His repeated requests for early release from his sentence display no remorse for what he did, revealing him to be a continued danger to the community.”
The prosecution also argued that the medical care Anderson was getting in prison was perfectly fine.
Judge Kimberly Miller determined that Anderson’s release plan, which includes working with a social worker and community organizations and eventually looking for employment, satisfied the court’s prior concerns.
With Anderson at high risk from COVID-19, his general health in continuing decline and his plan to return to society better laid out than in previous requests for release, Miller ordered him freed, although he will be on supervised release for five years.
The Saint Vincent de Paul Society has agreed to pay Anderson’s rent for up to three months while he works to have his Social Security benefits reinstated. Medicare will cover his medical bills, and Terminal Island has agreed to cover the cost of getting Anderson to Sacramento.
“Anderson has accepted responsibility for his crimes, including pleading guilty to all 19 charges against him,” Miller wrote. “The court is satisfied that his release plan sufficiently addresses the need to protect the public from further crimes.”
Adraktas declined to comment beyond what is in the court record. Through a spokeswoman, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California also declined to comment.
Originally published at Alex N. Gecan