A former Honolulu woman who skimmed as much as $250,000 from city parking garage fees escaped prison time but agreed to repay the money in a plea agreement last week.

Gale Bracey, 38, pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of first-degree theft and two counts of first-degree money laundering.

The scam led the city to reshape its contractual process with private parking concessionaires. The city now requires parking companies to pay a flat monthly fee, instead of the previous arrangement of collecting a percentage of the concessionaire's gross receipts, said city spokesman Bill Brennan.

Bracey's attorney, Myles Breiner, said she took responsibility for the theft but that there were others, including city employees, who “;were allowed to cooperate as witnesses”; and avoided being charged. “;None of this would have happened if there had not been an absence of city control, favoritism in the bidding process. The accounting alone was an abomination, an invitation for abuse”; in a system dating back more than 20 years, Breiner said.

Breiner said the exact amount of money taken has yet to be determined. Circuit Judge Randal Lee will set the amount of compensation owed at an Aug. 3 sentencing hearing.

Bracey was a manager with Republic Parking Northwest from August 2004 to April 2007 when she pocketed cash payments from monthly customers at the Kukui Plaza and Hale Pauahi garages, according to the plea agreement with the city Prosecutor's Office. She moved to a different company when it won contracts for the two lucrative parking structures, and her successor with Republic Parking raised questions about discrepancies in fee collection amounts.

Brennan said a tip to the city raised the question that “;something might be amiss in the collection,”; adding, “;We did an internal investigation and the investigator checked the books. What he found led to the belief that the manager was skimming off the top. There is nothing to show that city workers were involved.”;

Bracey, who had no prior convictions, now lives in Japan, where her husband is in the military. Her attorney has filed a request with the judge for deferred acceptance of her guilty plea, which would wipe her record clean after she meets sentencing requirements.