Former Orange County
Treasurer-Tax Collector accounting assistant Laura Estrella Cruz was convicted today of stealing over
$2,600 in taxes and fees residents sent to her office.
The 35-year-old Santa Ana resident pleaded guilty to
one felony count of grand theft and one felony count of misappropriation
of public funds.
She was sentenced to 60 days in jail, five years probation and 45 days of community service.
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Cruz and was
ordered to pay $2,616 in restitution and $1,000 to the Victim Witness
Emergency Fund, and she is now barred from holding any public office in
California.
Between January and July 2010, Cruz
stole the more than $2,600 sent
to the Treasurer-Tax Collector's Office by residents paying various fees and
taxes. She deposited 20 checks and money
orders made payable to the County of Orange into her personal bank
account. A routine account check exposed her embezzlement, the Orange County Sheriff's Department
conducted an investigation and Cruz was charged last year.
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.