Embezzlement

A former Irvine architecture firm executive was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to pay millions in fines and restitution for stealing $1.9 million from his former company. Salvatory Josef Fulwider, 38, of Yorba Linda, was ordered to pay $3.3 million restitution and $3.9 million for embezzling from McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Inc. between 2003 and 2009. He was convicted of two felony counts of grand theft, nine counts of forgery, 37 counts of falsifying records with sentencing enhancements for stealing more than $1.3 million.

The Orangewood Children's Foundation's former chief financial officer, who was fired in 2005 amid suspicions of embezzlement, was arrested Thursday on more than 200 charges. Tracy Salcido, 37, of Yorba Linda, is charged with 206 counts of forgery and 20 counts of falsifying records, actions that allegedly helped her obtain more than $780,000 of foundation money. Prosecutors said Salcido forged checks, manipulated accounts and falsified reports of the foundation's expenses and earnings.

Deirdre Newman As a result of the embezzlement 10 years ago of about $4 million, the school district implemented a series of checks and controls to prevent a greedy, powerful employee from having free rein with the district's finances. The embezzlement, discovered in October 1992, shattered the Newport-Mesa Unified School District's credibility and sent the budget director, Stephen Wagner, to jail, where he would eventually die. Wagner had used the stolen funds to support his lavish lifestyle, which included mink-lined tuxedos, expensive cars and jewels.

Deirdre Newman It was 10 years ago that signs of a million-dollar embezzlement first appeared in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, eventually sending shockwaves through the administration and eroding the public's trust when it turned out the man entrusted with the financial stewardship of the district was responsible. Stephen Wagner, who was the district's budget director, was suspended Oct. 23, 1992 pending an investigation that eventually turned up an embezzlement of close to $4 million.

A spokeswoman for the Orange County Performing Arts Center said Tuesday that the center has employed a check and balance system after a former employee embezzled more than $1 million. Ana Limbaring, who worked in the center's finance department since 1995, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft and computer fraud Monday in Orange County Superior Court, officials said. In 2000, Limbaring, 53, began stealing cash from the center.

A man who allegedly pointed a high-powered laser at a police helicopter was arrested Thursday at his home in the Villa Point condominiums in Newport Beach, police said Friday. Peter Kontos, the president of the Villa Point Condominium Assn., is also under investigation in the embezzlement of more than $500,000 from the condo association, Newport Police Sgt. Bill Hartford said. Kontos has not been charged in the embezzlement. While serving a search warrant at Kontos' condo early Thursday, police recovered a pointer laser and found more than $100,000 in cash and several grams of cocaine, Hartford said.

All these big corporate bankruptcies and all the cooked books remind me of when I was almost charged with embezzlement. My victim: the city of Newport Beach. It was during the Depression, when cities were going belly up almost as often as today's corporations. Newport Beach kept afloat in large part because of income from the Police Department and city court. Balboa could be guaranteed to furnish 50 to 75 drunks to the city jail on a busy Saturday night.

It may sound trite, but it nevertheless is true: The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has come a long way in the last 10 years. In late 1992, the district was reeling from the disclosure that one of its most trusted employees, Stephen Wagner, had managed to embezzle millions in district money. That his lavish lifestyle -- the fur tuxedo and piece of art are now infamous -- raised no questions seemed painful evidence that the district was being poorly managed and poorly run. No more.

It's a Fine day for Riverside schools. A Mike Fine day to be exact. Fine, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District financial wizard, has accepted a job in his Inland Valley hometown that will take him away from the job he's done here since 1992. For Newport-Mesa that translates to not-so-fine news as residents, parents, teachers and students have much thanks to dish out to this able administrator. Fine arrived at the district with the title of budget analyst and auditor just as the devastation of Stephen Wagner's embezzlement schemes were coming to light.

The former chief financial officer of an Irvine technology company remained in custody Monday after he was denied bail in U.S. District Court, authorities said. Jean Joseph Ibrahim, 33, was indicted last week on two counts of wire fraud related to a $16-million embezzlement scheme. He has been in federal custody since his arrest last month when he reentered the country at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. He was returned to California on April 11. Ibrahim was assigned to U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford, according to court records.

A travel manager formerly from Irvine was sentenced to 12 years in state prison for embezzlement after pleading guilty to making numerous unauthorized trips and luxury purchases on company credit cards, authorities said Monday. While working at TravelCorp USA in Anaheim, Jeremy Belisario, 38, bought numerous air travel tickets and lavish items using company cards; he forced his own bank account to OK the sales using a fake authorization code, the Orange County district attorney's office said in a news release.

A former Irvine architecture firm executive was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to pay millions in fines and restitution for stealing $1.9 million from his former company. Salvatory Josef Fulwider, 38, of Yorba Linda, was ordered to pay $3.3 million restitution and $3.9 million for embezzling from McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Inc. between 2003 and 2009. He was convicted of two felony counts of grand theft, nine counts of forgery, 37 counts of falsifying records with sentencing enhancements for stealing more than $1.3 million.

A 36-year-old man convicted of embezzling more than $1.9 million from an Irvine-based architecture firm is scheduled to appear for sentencing Friday. Salvatory Josef Fulwider of Yorba Linda pled guilty to 48 felonies, including grand theft, making false entries in records or returns, and acts constituting forgery with sentencing enhancement for damages exceeding $100,000, fraud or embezzlement exceeding $500,000 and theft exceeding $150,000, court records show. Fulwider was the financial controller for McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Inc., between November 2003 and March 2009, and was responsible for corporate finances as well as the personal finances of one of the company's owners, according to a February 2010 news release from the Orange County district attorney's office.

A Huntington Beach man who practices law in Newport Beach is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on charges that he siphoned off more than $117,000 from one of his widowed clients. Redmond Peter McAneny, 55, is accused of felony embezzlement with an enhancement for the loss being more than $65,000. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted of all charges. His arraignment will be at the Central Jail in Santa Ana. McAneny, a personal injury lawyer whose office is on Quail Street, is accused of securing a $117,000 settlement between his client, Deborah Slaybaugh, and her son and then stealing it. Slaybaugh's husband had changed the terms of his trust before he died, leaving it unclear who should receive his life insurance benefits.

I usually think about Stephen Wagner — Newport-Mesa's most accomplished embezzler of public money — only when I happen to pass by his former upscale home in Newport Beach's Dover Shores neighborhood. My stream of consciousness goes something like this: mink-lined tuxedo, Rolls Royce, the island of Nevis. What a sad, tortured and short life. Last week, a house wasn't needed to trigger thoughts of Wagner. He immediately came to mind when the news broke that Jeffrey Hubbard, superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, had been charged with two felony counts of misappropriating public funds.

The sentencing for a Newport Beach man who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a community association and blinded a police helicopter pilot with a laser was rescheduled Friday to April 3, officials said. Peter G. Kontos will be sentenced related to convictions on two separate cases. He pleaded guilty to flashing a green laser at a Newport Beach police helicopter on St. Patrick’s Day in 2006 and to embezzling more than $500,000 from the Villa Point Condominium Assn.

The Rev. Bradley Stienstra first felt pulled to enter the ministry as a student at UC Santa Barbara during the 1970 Isla Vista riots. “[The riots] seemed to call into question my youthful idealism,” said Stienstra, who went to college with the goal of becoming a well-paid defense attorney. “I thought the world would be bettered if we just got the right people into the right places, but people were behaving badly on both sides,” Stienstra said. “I began thinking that if the world was going to be saved, it was going to have to be saved by someone who came from beyond it.” Stienstra is leaving the church in Riverside where he has worked for the past 19 years this week to become the new pastor at Newport Harbor Lutheran Church.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has been vociferously criticizing President Bush for not pardoning two border patrol agents convicted of shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, an admitted drug smuggler, in 2005 near the Texas-Mexico border. Bush pardoned 14 people and commuted the sentences of two others Monday, but did not pardon Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, who are serving sentences of 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively. By allowing the men to serve prison time for firing at Davila, the administration is sending a message to all border patrol agents that they should not use their guns, even when they’re justified in doing so, according to Rohrabacher spokeswoman Tara Setmayer.

For two years Newport Harbor Lutheran Church leaders were able to keep quiet about the police investigation surrounding their finances. Detectives told them the more people who knew, the more likely the suspects would be tipped off. But when Cheryl Granger, who goes by her middle name Lean (“Lee-Ann”), was flown from her New Hampshire home back to Orange County last week to face charges of embezzling $320,000 from the church, there was no fighting it any longer, church leaders said.