The former employee of the Fresno Arts Council at the center of an embezzlement scandal pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced that Suliana Caldwell, 46, pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1.8 million in Measure P funding from the Arts Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: Caldwell worked as operations manager for the Arts Council from 2021 to February 2026, when city officials reported that $1.5 million in Measure P funding was embezzled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The funding was intended to support local access to the arts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caldwell agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors earlier this month and agreed to pay back the money in restitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zoom in: Caldwell began embezzling the money in 2022 by making unauthorized withdrawals from the Fresno Arts Council\u2019s bank accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She increased the amount of money she withdrew once the Fresno City Council contracted the Arts Council to administer Measure P grand funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with the theft, Caldwell falsified financial reports by showing incorrect funds in the Arts Council\u2019s bank accounts and presented the false reports to the organization\u2019s leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court documents state that Caldwell used the money to gamble at local casinos, pay for vacations and for other personal expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: Caldwell will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston on Aug. 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former employee of the Fresno Arts Council at the center of an embezzlement scandal pleaded guilty to…\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-277977","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\/277977","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=277977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277977\/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=277977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}