AUGUSTA (AP) – The former director of the Maine AIDS Alliance has pleaded guilty to theft and the state has moved for dismissal of charges of falsifying private records and misuse of entrusted property.

Sentencing for Randall Norcross, 64, of Augusta, was continued Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Colleran alleged that Norcross wrote 23 unauthorized checks between September 1999 and December 2001, when he left the Augusta-based agency.

Colleran and Harold Hainke, who represented Norcross, agreed to a maximum sentence for Norcross of three years in prison, with all but six months suspended, and four years of probation.

Norcross told Justice S. Kirk Studstrup he left a job at Motivational Services after he was attacked by a patient in 1996, receiving a broken nose and concussion and developing the beginnings of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Norcross said he took the AIDS alliance job at a low salary and was unable to take the four weeks of annual vacation he had negotiated because he was the lone full-time employee and began writing checks in lieu of vacation time to cover private expenses.

“Again, I regret my action in terms of spending money I was not authorized to spend,” he said. “I did it out of deep frustration for not getting what I needed from the agency.”

Sharon Pray, an alliance board member who took over as interim director after Norcross, said his actions produced “deep feelings of betrayal among those with AIDS” and damaged the group’s financial integrity.

“Mr. Norcross has sullied the public face and respectable name of Maine AIDS Alliance,” she said.

The Maine AIDS Alliance is an umbrella group for 13 organizations.