Jeweler Ordered to Prison Over Theft

A Ventura jeweler was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for stealing more than $100,000 of his customers’ jewelry over a three-year period.

William Allen Pullen Jr., 38, pleaded guilty in November to nine counts of felony grand theft in exchange for prosecutors dropping 26 similar charges.

Pullen, who owned Will’s Diamonds & Gems on Telephone Road, admitted stealing jewels that were brought to him for repair or to be sold on consignment. He was arrested early last year after a number of customers complained to authorities that they either did not get their jewels back from Pullen or that they received goods inferior to those they had dropped off with him.

Investigators believe that Pullen pawned most of the jewels.