{"id":262039,"date":"2026-04-11T02:01:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262039\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T02:01:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:01:28","slug":"former-fresno-arts-council-employee-accused-of-1-8m-embezzlement-to-plead-guilty-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262039\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Fresno Arts Council employee accused of $1.8M embezzlement to plead guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Court records show Suliana Caldwell, who served as the Fresno Arts Council&#8217;s operations manager, has been offered a plea deal, which she intends to accept.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The deal says she could face up to 20 years in prison and requires her to pay restitution in full.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Quite frankly, with the heartache that she&#8217;s caused to the arts community in Fresno and with the fact that she&#8217;s been doing this for nearly four years, I hope that she would get a stiff sentence,&#8221; Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dyer says the city is working to move funds in the budget for Measure P recipients, who did not get allocated money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Caldwell is set to be in court for a change of plea hearing on April 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former employee of the Fresno Arts Council has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud of more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113,10332,114802],"class_list":["post-262039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-jerry-dyer","tag-suliana-caldwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262039","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=262039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}