(Editors note: the headline from KNBC-TV should read $500,000 stolen.)

Statement from Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco:

Charges have been filed against seven people – including two former County Office of Education employees – involved in schemes that fraudulently took funds from a countywide child care program for needy families.
“These defendants not only took money from taxpayers, they took funds from a program intended to assist needy families,” DA Rod Pacheco said. “The greed of these seven people kept families and children across this county from getting the help they need.”

The two former child care liaisons with RCOE are Stephanie Luna Vega, DOB: 4-23-72; and Esmeralda Garcia Martinez, DOB: 11-28-73, both of Riverside. Four others charged are related to Vega. They are her mother, Sylvia Avila, DOB: 1-4-49, of San Bernardino; her father Alberto Lobato Luna, DOB: 1-4-49, of Riverside; her stepmother Camilla Wright Luna, DOB: 9-8-49, of Riverside and her sister-in-law Toni Catherine Luna, 12-27-70, of Riverside. Also charged is Brenda Acosta, DOB: 6-10-79, of Lake Elsinore.

Five of the seven charged in the case were arrested and booked Thursday, December. 2. Alberto Luna works as a long-haul trucker and he and Camilla Wright Luna are out of the state. They have been contacted and told to surrender themselves upon their return to California.

The seven defendants face a variety of charges including embezzlement by a public officer, grand theft and conspiracy to commit fraud.

The scheme happened between 2001 and September 2009. Vega and Martinez had the authority to approve and issue checks for the RCOE child care program. The state and federal funds in this program are to legitimately be dispersed by RCOE to needy families seeking child care and the payments are to go to the child care provider. That can be for in-home care or at a licensed day care facility.

Instead, fake child care providers were created as well as some fake children and alterations to the names of actual children who were no longer part of the program. Vega would make one of her family members the provider for these fake children. For example, her father, Alberto Luna, had nine fake children for whom he was fraudulently receiving funds. Alberto Luna received the largest sum of money, more than $314,000.

Martinez diverted legitimate funds to herself while also creating false records. Toni Luna and Brenda Acosta lied about their true income levels on applications in order to receive benefits illegally.

In all, Vega facilitated the loss of $527,940, which includes about $62,000 illegally to place her son in a day care and funds diverted to her husband.

It was Vega’s husband who inadvertently discovered the scheme when, during their divorce in 2009, he found a bag in a closet which contained documents that had a slight alteration of his name on them as well as $3,000 cash. He told family members who in turn reported it to RCOE officials. RCOE then asked the county Department of Public Social Services to conduct the investigation. They were later assisted by District Attorney’s investigators.

Filed under Headline

Saturday, December 4, 2010

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