Jorge Armando Contreras seemed to enjoy a life beyond the means of a fiscal director for an Orange County school district. He wore designer clothing, drove a BMW X5 and bought a new $1.5-million home in Yorba Linda, according to federal prosecutors.
He also had stacks of cash stuffed into Louis Vuitton purses and a mini-fridge at his home, federal prosecutors said. Contreras, 53, was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling $16.7 million from the Magnolia School District.
The school district, for grades preschool through sixth, serves mostly students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds in Anaheim and Stanton, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California announced in a news release.
From September 2016 to July 2023, Contreras carried out his theft as the director of fiscal services. He deposited more than 250 checks in his personal Wells Fargo bank account, according to drive-through ATM photos included in the criminal complaint, and then presented falsified bank records to the school district. In just 11 months, Contreras embezzled more than $4.
1 million, according to court documents. During that same time, he withdrew $325,000 from multiple ATMs, transferred more than $130,000 to his partner before they were married and paid $1.9 million on his American Express credit card.
He presented checks to his superiors to sign for small amounts from a school account that he claimed were meant to correct p.