FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — A former employee of the Fresno Arts Council has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud of more than $1.8 million, all funds that had been earmarked to support local artists.<\/p>\n
Court records show Suliana Caldwell, who served as the Fresno Arts Council’s operations manager, has been offered a plea deal, which she intends to accept.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say she took funds, including those for Measure P grants, and used that money to gamble at casinos, pay for vacations and other personal expenses.<\/p>\n
The deal says she could face up to 20 years in prison and requires her to pay restitution in full.<\/p>\n
“Quite frankly, with the heartache that she’s caused to the arts community in Fresno and with the fact that she’s been doing this for nearly four years, I hope that she would get a stiff sentence,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said.<\/p>\n
Dyer says the city is working to move funds in the budget for Measure P recipients, who did not get allocated money.<\/p>\n
Caldwell is set to be in court for a change of plea hearing on April 20.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — A former employee of the Fresno Arts Council has agreed to plead guilty to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[115102,115101,112,114,113,294],"class_list":["post-261898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-115102","tag-former-fresno-arts-council-employee-accused-of-1-8m-embezzlement-to-plead-guilty","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-timely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261898","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=261898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}