A Highway Patrol officer who lost her job after using phony prescription forms to take time off of work pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and has been sentenced to three years of
probation, 10 days of community service and an order to pay $5,000 in restitution.
Deborah Therese Sparso, an Anaheim Hills 46-year-old who often served as a CHP media spokesperson, copped Wednesday to misdemeanor manufacturing, copying or reproducing false
prescription blank forms.
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Without the guilty plea, Sparso was looking at up to six months in jail, according to an arraignment statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office.
Between Sept. 15, 2008, and Apr. 15, 2011, she submitted
prescription forms to take $11,000 worth of paid time off from the CHP, which requires the notes from doctors. The problem was, the doctor on the script did not fill it out nor authorize anyone else to
do so.
Deborah Therese Sparso, CHP Officer, Allegedly Used Prescription Forms to Take Paid Time Off
Sparso used to work out of the CHP's Westminster office.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.