Deck Head: The crimes of a former planning board member and Hannaford vice president surprised those who knew him.

Five years ago, Martin Greeley had what many people want in life – a good job, statewide prominence in his field, a nice home and a family.

A former member of Scarborough’s planning board and the board of directors of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Greeley was involved in the community and well liked by those who knew him.

Greeley shocked many of those people last year when he pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and tax evasion. Last week he was sentenced for those crimes to 46 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He will also have to pay $657,260 in restitution – the amount he embezzled from the Hannaford supermarket chain, where he was employed for 26 years. He was facing up to 20 years for mail fraud and five years for tax evasion.

Greeley started as a meat cutter at Hannaford, and worked his way up to vice president of government relations. He held several other positions, including meat manager and store manager, throughout his time with the company.

Greeley was a member of the Scarborough Planning Board from August 1990 until December 1998. He served as chairman during his final three years on the board.

Don Quigley, another former planning board chairman whose term overlapped with Greeley’s, remembers him as “an extremely likable human being.”

Though Quigley said he was shocked to find out about the charges against Greeley, having been a lawyer for a long time, Quigley realizes that it is hard to truly know any person’s capabilities.

“You never know what’s in the heart of man,” he said.

A money-making scheme

Greeley was fired from his job at Hannaford in 2005, according to Supermarket News, after an investigation began into a scheme involving false vendors, set up by Greeley and used to bilk money from the company.

According to federal court documents, Greeley sent an invoice to Hannaford from a fake company called Granite State Survey, in late 2000, listing a post office box in Portsmouth, N.H., as the address that would receive the payment. Greeley had set up a business account, listing himself as a payee.

As with two other false vendors he created in the following years, Greeley would take money out of the accounts through both cashier’s checks and ATM withdrawals, according court documents.

In 2002, Greeley set up an account for Northeast Food and charged Hannaford for services that were not provided. This time, he had the checks sent to a post office box in Newburyport, Mass., according to court documents.

The final false vendor created by Greeley was hidden under the guise of a charitable organization called Maine Business Network. It was through payments of $15,000 to this vendor that Greeley was caught. He successfully cashed the first check issued to Maine Business Network, but Hannaford was able to stop payment on the second installment of $15,000 sent to the post office box Greeley had set up in Augusta.

A spokeswoman for Hannaford declined to comment on the case.

Greeley pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and tax evasion in August 2006. Thus, the case of the United States of America vs. Martin T. Greeley was primarily concerned with the severity of the impending sentence.

A character flaw

According to federal court documents, the argument from the defendant’s side was that Greeley had an innate “character flaw” – the same one that caused his alcoholism earlier in life – that provoked his criminal activity. Sober since 1986, Greeley found a new outlet in embezzlement.

Letters from his brothers and his counselor all emphasized the remorse Greeley felt for his actions and even the relief that he felt in being caught in a scheme that he was inexplicably compelled to continue.

The letters, which were included in the court documents, addressed difficulties Greeley had encountered in his life, such as living with a strict, alcoholic father who died young, and dealing with his own subsequent alcoholism. They also cited the difficulties he now faces. His wife, Cheryl Greeley, a dance teacher in South Portland, has divorced him, and his children have either distanced themselves from their father or stopped speaking to him.

Greeley lives on Militia Lane, a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood off Pleasant Hill Road in Scarborough. One of Greeley’s neighbors, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was friendly and frequently waved to neighbors when he was working in his yard. Other than that, she said, he kept mostly to himself. She called it a “tragic situation.”

Greeley is scheduled to report to jail no later than 2 p.m. on Feb. 2.

As he was pulling out of his driveway in a pickup truck a few days after his sentencing, Greeley paused to say he was trying to turn his life around and move on. He declined to comment further, saying he had already spoken to the people he needed to – people, he said, who were hurt by his actions and did not need to be reminded of the situation.

Martin Greeley’s house on Militia Lane in Scarborough.Militia Lane, a cul-de-sac off of Pleasant Hill Rd., is where Martin Greeley lived.Martin Greeley, convicted of mail fraud and tax evasion, lived in this house on Militia Lane in Scarborough.Martin Greeley lived at this home in Scarborough, but conducted mail fraud through post office boxes that he set up in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.