Former school district employee convicted in embezzlement case

The former transportation director for the Coachella
Valley Unified School District was convicted today of misappropriating and
embezzling district funds, and his longtime girlfriend was found guilty of
grand theft.
An Indio jury deliberated for about three days before finding that Raul
Portillo Lopez, 56, misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars in district
funds between 2003 and 2007.
He was convicted of 26 of 27 felony counts, including misappropriation
of funds and embezzlement, and acquitted of one count of misappropriation of
funds.
Clemencia Ochoa was convicted of three of four felony counts of grand
theft in excess of $400 for signing time sheets for overtime she never worked.
The jury reduced the fourth count to petty theft.
Lopez and Ochoa are scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 2.
Lopez — who worked for the district for 25 years and as transportation
director for the last 10 of those years — authorized more than $109,000 in
payments for vehicle parts for district vehicle repairs that were instead used
at his own auto repair shop, according to the prosecution.
Lopez also authorized payments of more than $75,000 to an auto body shop
for bus repairs that were never done, and giving the body shop’s owner a cut
of the repair money, Deputy District Attorney William Robinson said.
The body shop owner, Gregorio Zarate, pleaded guilty to a felony charge
of grand theft in excess of $400 in October 2009 and was sentenced to a year in
sheriff’s custody and three years probation, according to court records.
Lopez also approving more than $17,000 in fraudulent overtime pay for
Ochoa, according to the prosecution.
“They started coming up with invoices for repairs on these buses …
Mr. Lopez would sign it, it goes to the district and Mr. Zarate gets the check,
he cashes it and takes it to Mr. Lopez, ” Robinson told the jury in his
closing argument last week.
He said Lopez got 75 to 80 percent of that money and Zarate got the rest.
Robinson said Lopez sent buses to Zarate’s shop even though employees
told him the shop did poor work, and Lopez sent the buses to the shop behind
his fleet supervisor’s back.
“I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, the reason he did that was he
had the agreement with Mr. Zarate,” Robinson said.
A transportation expert found no evidence of repairs on buses invoiced
for repair, the buses weren’t taken out of service and Zarate said he didn’t
work on some of those buses, the prosecutor said. In one instance, the district
was billed for the same parts twice, Robinson said.
He also told jurors that Lopez authorized payments for hundreds of parts
ordered from NAPA, including parts for vehicles that weren’t part of the
district’s fleet. Of several mechanics who testified, only one said he asked
Lopez to order parts and received parts from Lopez, the prosecutor said.
“So what happened to them? That’s the big question,” Robinson said.
Lopez’s attorney, Mickie Reed, said no one testified that they saw Lopez
take parts from the district, or that the district paid for parts he took.
And, she said, “where is all this evidence of a lucrative side business?”
“There were no parts at my client’s house, not one,” she said in her
closing argument last week.
She argued there was no evidence Ochoa got the overtime pay and that
Lopez embezzled money.
“I don’t see how you can find Mr. Lopez guilty of those embezzlement
charges because there’s no proof anybody got that money,” she said.
The defense attorney contended a transportation expert hired by the
district “was very biased against my client. He believed anything people
would say about my client but doesn’t believe other things that support him.”
She said Lopez didn’t hide anything, including meeting with Zarate.
“Not one person has ever, ever seen any money pass hands, ever,” she
said.
Reed said investigators “looked at two things — records provided by
the school district and anything negative about Mr. Lopez. They ignored
everything else.”
Lopez started with the district in 1981 as a mechanic and worked various
jobs in the transportation department. He was promoted to director in 1997,
and was responsible for 100 employees and a nearly $7 million budget, Robinson
said.
In the fall of 2006, district officials suspected the transportation
department wasn’t being run efficiently and hired a consultant, who “concluded
there was mismanagement at the very least,” Robinson said.
Lopez was put on administrative leave in 2007. District officials
couldn’t be reached to discuss his current status.