COQUILLE �” If a jury finds a Coquille woman guilty of embezzling money from a party fund for high schoolers, the Coos County District Attorney will have to do quick footwork to get her a sentence more severe than probation.

District Attorney R. Paul Frasier said that’s the most Gwen Sherbondy could get for the first-degree aggravated theft charge, but he wants to convince a jury to allow the presiding judge to depart from sentencing guidelines.

“What I have told the defense from the beginning is that I didn’t think that presumptive probation was appropriate,” Frasier said.

He wouldn’t say what sentence he plans to seek for the 46-year-old woman, who also faces one federal count of bank robbery. But the DA said he will argue that she “violated a public trust in committing the crime” and that he believes she’s been involved in similar offenses.

Sherbondy faces one federal charge in connection with the Feb. 24 heist of a Roseburg Wells Fargo Bank, and she is a person of interest in three other bank robberies, including one at Washington Federal Savings Bank in Lincoln City in September 2008. She has not been charged in those cases.

“The fact that she may have committed bank robberies would be relevant,” Frasier said.

Judge Michael Gillespie set a three-day, 12-person jury trial for the defendant beginning Nov. 4. Sherbondy appeared with public defender Ronald Cox on Tuesday morning for her third plea-change hearing. Gillespie reminded Cox and his client that he would grant no more extensions.

“My point is ... I’m not waiting for the feds,” Gillespie said.

Dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt, Sherbondy stood quietly as her attorney spoke with the judge. As soon as the hearing was over, Sherbondy rushed from the courtroom.

Since Aug. 31, Cox has requested the hearing be postponed to speak with Frasier, following the DA’s vacation, and with federal defense attorney Mark Weintraub to seek a unified settlement on Sherbondy’s state and federal charges.

Federal agents arrested Sherbondy in March, after searching her Coquille home and charged her in the bank robbery case. She is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Eugene on Sept. 21.

The local theft charge deals with about $11,000 in missing funds from Coquille High School’s Class of 2009 Project Graduation fund. The mother of a recent Coquille graduate, Sherbondy supervised the yearlong project to raise funds for a party.

She has a history of fundraising theft, having pleaded guilty in 2005 to two counts each of first-degree theft and of negotiating a bad check related to her job in South Eugene High School’s transcript office. The school’s parent council had organized a grocery coupon fundraiser and Sherbondy was seen on Fred Meyer surveillance cameras purchasing vacuum cleaners and light bulbs with the coupons. She later returned the items for cash. A judge sentenced her to one and a half years of probation and 40 hours of community service, as well as restitution and court costs.

For the trial, Frasier said he will present evidence from the home search. He explained that the case started when the Coquille School District received complaints about irregularities in the graduation fund. In an unrelated incident, Lt. Pat Smith of the Coquille Police Department identified Sherbondy in surveillance camera images circulated by the FBI showing a woman holding up the Roseburg Wells Fargo.