The former Fresno Arts Council employee at the center of the Measure P embezzlement scandal will plead guilty to federal wire fraud as part of a deal with prosecutors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The plea agreement for ex-Arts Council employee Suliana Caldwell was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California last Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backstory: Caldwell\u2019s name quickly emerged after Fresno city officials revealed in early February that $1.5 million in Measure P funds had been embezzled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The money was given to the Arts Council to distribute for competitive grants intended to expand access to arts in Fresno.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Longtime Arts Council leader Lilia Gonzales-Chavez has since left the organization and has been replaced by Andrea Mele in the interim.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: Caldwell admitted in her plea that she embezzled $1.8 million from the Arts Council, a greater number than had been previously reported. She has agreed to pay the money back in restitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court documents reveal that Caldwell began her embezzlement scheme in June 2022 by transferring money from Arts Council bank accounts to her bank account and her PayPal account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She admitted to using the money at local casinos and to pay for vacations, among other uses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: Caldwell hid the scheme for over three years by altering financial reports that she submitted to her bosses and to the city and county.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She confessed her crimes to the Fresno Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on March 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: Caldwell is scheduled to plead guilty on April 20, with sentencing likely to follow in the months after.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, although federal prosecutors will recommend a sentence of three years of supervised release and full restitution, as part of the plea deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Fresno Arts Council employee at the center of the Measure P embezzlement scandal will plead guilty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-260362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}