-- From Times staff reporter Ian Ith:

Michael and Katie Lambard came to King County Superior Court in Seattle this afternoon expecting to be sentenced for taking anywhere from $180,000 to $350,000 from a woman in her late 80s who thought the Lambards were her friends.

For the better part of 2007 and 2008, the couple managed to drain Margaret Martin's bank accounts to go on a trip, buy themselves three cars and otherwise live it up, according to prosecution documents. Martin died recently in a North Seattle assisted-living center, largely penniless, humiliated and betrayed, her friends, attorneys and a police detective told Judge Michael Hayden.

But the Lambards' defense lawyers had other ideas Friday.

Even though the Lambards each entered guilty pleas last month to nine counts of felony theft, the lawyer, Mark Langley of Seattle, argued to Hayden that he really ought to consider the thefts one single crime, and give the Lambards exceptionally light sentences as if they had only been convicted of one count.

After Hayden and Langley engaged in a sharp back-and-forth -- in which a clearly annoyed Hayden all but questioned Langley's knowledge of the law -- the judge agreed to let the Lambards stay free till Aug. 27, when the court will essentially hold a big do-over.

In the meantime, Hayden urged Langley to hit the books, and try to come up with some actual legal precedent to support his notions.

"You can look," Hayden told him. "I don't think you can find it."

The Lambards were originally charged in January with more than 30 counts of theft, one for each time they paid themselves out of Martin's bank accounts and credit cards. According to court documents, the Lambard family had befriended Martin, a childless widow, and she firmly believed they were practically family.

The police got involved when Katie Lambard showed up at Toyota of Lake City three different times to buy brand-new cars with checks signed by Martin. A suspicious sales manager called the authorities.

"She died not only having lost her entire estate, but the only family she thought she had at the time," Deputy Prosecutor Page Ulrey said in asking for a 41-month prison term for each of the defendants.

But the Lambards entered so-called Alford plea to the charges, which means they agree there's enough evidence to convict them but they don't admit to the crimes.

So in addition to trying to argue that the nine counts should be treated as only one, Langley also asserted that the thefts weren't actually thefts at all, because Martin had loved the Lambards and had actually given them the money and cars as gifts.

Judge Hayden didn't seem to be buying that line, either. "You can wrap it however you want," Hayden said. "However you want to recast it today, those were not gifts. They were thefts."

Still, Hayden said he'd be happy to look at Langley's legal arguments for turning nine counts into one -- if he can find any.

But as he adjourned court, Hayden warned the Lambards to show up Aug. 27 fully prepared "for incarceration in some form."