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The sentencing of Earl “Joey” Gilliam got delayed yesterday, for the fifth time. But Judge Jeffrey S. Jones allowed two family members—Joey Gilliam’s half-sister, Olivia Gilliam, and his aunt, Felicia Gilliam-Capps—to make victims’ statements.
In March, Joey Gilliam pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated theft in the first degree and one count of criminal mistreatment in the first degree. Aggravated theft carries a maximum sentence of 10 years; criminal mistreatment carries a sentence of up to five years.
The crimes followed the unsolved poisonings of Gilliam’s father, Joe Gilliam, the longtime president of the Northwest Grocery Assocation. In 2020, a person or persons poisoned the elder Gilliam with thallium, a toxic substance used to kill rodents but which was banned in this country decades ago. Gilliam recovered from the first poisoning, although Oregon doctors failed to properly diagnose what ailed him. He never completely recovered and then was poisoned a second time and hospitalized near his vacation home in Cave Creek, Ariz.
Because doctors were slow to realize Gilliam had been poisoned and because he fell ill in rural Marciopa County Ariz., far from his home in Lake Oswego, the criminal investigation got started late and suffered from being split between two jurisdictions in Oregon and Arizona. Gilliam entered a vegetative state after the second poisoning and remains in a long-term care facility in Clark County, Wash., unable to speak or care for himself.
In an emotional statement yesterday, Felicia Gilliam Capps, spoke of the tragedy of seeing her brother, Joe, poisoned in the same year that her other two brothers, Vic and Steve, both die—and then to find out that her nephew stole Joe’s money while Joe lay in a vegetative state. She replaced her nephew as Joe Gilliam’s guardian.
“The worst betrayal is what Joey has done to his father,” she told the court. “It is my wish Joey be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Related: Who Poisoned Joe Gilliam...Twice?
Prior to his being poisoned for the first time, Gilliam gave Joey power of attorney over his affairs, should he fall ill. But as Joe Gilliam lay in a vegetative state, police later determined, Joey Gilliam used the power of attorney to steal money from his father.
Exactly how much is a matter of dispute. In a sentencing memo, Clackamas County Deputy District Attorney Josh Cutino wrote that “the defendant used approximately $381,000 for his own benefit,” and argued the appropriate sentence is 54 months in prison.
In her response, Joey Gilliam’s attorney, Shannon Kmetic asserted the theft was far less “the amount in question is around $100,000 to $120,000,” Kmetic wrote, adding “this money is money he would have received as one of the heirs of the estate.” Kmetic is seeking probation.
Next month, the judge will decide whether Joey Gilliam, who has two previous, unrelated felony convictions for assault, remains a free man. His half-sister, Olivia, delivered a blistering plea for the state to lock him up.
“It is my brother that robbed the financial security of a successful and hard working may with a lifetime of medical bills ahead of him. He took what was left of mine and my dad’s life and destroyed it, all in the name of having some fun with his friends,” she told the court. Olivia Gilliam said her half-brother withheld information about her father’s condition, threatened her and caused her such fear and trauma that she temporarily left the country and later moved twice to keep her location from him.
“You, Joey, are not a man. You are a criminal. Your behavior has only escalated over time,” she added. “Twenty years ago, you were stealing money out my piggy banks and cutting holes in my books to hide contraband in the house. And today, you steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and threaten to harm anyone who stands in your way.”
Sentencing is set for Sept. 11.