A husband and wife who stole more than $255,000 from the Harris County District Attorney's Office restitution fund will spend 10 years on probation with a litany of conditions, a judge ruled Thursday.

State District Judge Kevin Fine decided Eloise Mireles, a former 16-year employee of the victims' rights division of the office, and Daniel Mireles will both spend at least six months behind bars, one month a year for six years.

Both were taken into custody while their 19-year-old daughter and family and friends cried in the courtroom immediately after the sentence was read.

Eloise Mireles also will spend the next six months in prison as a condition.

Both pleaded guilty to theft charges in April. Fine gave the couple two months to scrape together savings to make restitution as a show of good faith.

They raised almost $95,000. However, that money may not have been paid back if the two had been sentenced to prison.

Daniel Mireles testified during a heated cross-examination that he would direct his attorney to give the money to his children, rather than pay back the victims if he did not get probation.

Fine ordered the pair to pay back the full $255,000 and gave them 10 years to do it. He also demanded they turn over the $95,000 they already had raised.

In her capacity as an administrative assistant beginning in 2001, Eloise Mireles stole money orders and cashiers checks from restitution funds paid by other convicted criminals. Daniel Mireles deposited the checks.

She testified this week that she saw a weakness in the accounting system and exploited it, rather than fixing it.

Must wear signs

Eloise Mireles initially was arrested and charged with stealing $1,000 last August. Charges were upgraded in December after prosecutors discovered she stole more than 400 money orders and cashier's checks submitted to the department between November 2002 and June 2009 by criminals ordered to pay victims.

Fine ordered that both must wear signs for five hours every weekend, him on Saturdays and her on Sundays, at the corner of Post Oak and Westheimer reading, "I am a thief. I stole $255,000 from a crime victim's fund."

They also must display a sign in front of their home reading, "The occupants of this residence are convicted thieves. They stole $250,000 from the Harris County Crime Victim's fund. Signed, Judge Kevin Fine."

They also must complete 400 hours of community service. She must pick up trash and he may pick up trash, clean graffiti or wire homes for Habitat for Humanity. Daniel Mireles had been employed as a cable television technician.

Went on trips

Lee Cox, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, said he was satisfied with the punishment, although he asked for prison time for both.

Rudy Vasquez, an attorney for Daniel Mireles, said the 38-year-old man would much rather admit every day that he was wrong than go to prison.

Juan Aguirre, Eloise Mireles' attorney, declined comment.

Testimony showed that the two spent the money on trips, concert tickets and tickets to Houston Texans and Rockets games.

Mireles, 37, admitted to theft by a public servant of more than $200,000, a first-degree felony. Daniel Mireles, 38, pleaded guilty to second-degree felony theft, with a sentencing range from probation to 20 years in prison.

Fine had the full range of sentencing options, from probation to life in prison, for Eloise Mireles.

brian.rogers@chron.com