4 accused of diverting $3.6 million from Santa Maria schools

 

SANTA BARBARA (AP) — A former Santa Maria-Bonita School District official and three executives from a construction management company have been indicted on charges of misappropriating $3.6 million in public money intended for building schools.

The California attorney general’s office said Monday that executives from TurnKey Inc. used money from the Santa Maria-Bonita School District to pay for expensive cars, artwork and cash bonuses for themselves.

Between 2000 and 2002, the Temecula-based company signed $62 million in construction management projects with the district and was expected to complete work at 16 schools.

 

But prosecutors alleged that by 2003, TurnKey started falling behind in its payments to subcontractors who were building the schools.

To cover for their rising debt, prosecutors said, TurnKey submitted false invoices to the school district and the former assistant superintendent, Cynthia Lynn Clark, was aware of the scheme.

“TurnKey squandered public money that was designated for construction costs at 16 schools in Santa Barbara County,” said California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Cynthia Lynn Clark and former TurnKey chief executive Harold Leo Clark III, who are not related, along with former chief operating officer Michael Patrick Bannan and a former vice president, David Irwin, were charged with misappropriation of public monies, embezzlement of public funds, diversion of construction funds and grand theft.

 

They face up to 38 years in prison if convicted of all counts.

The defendants were booked and released Monday and were scheduled to be arraigned May 19 in Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

Cynthia Lynn Clark’s attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, said his client is being blamed for the incompetence and negligence of the school board and the superintendent.

“She has nothing to do with these allegations. She didn’t make one penny off of these alleged embezzlements or thefts,” he said. “She did not draw up the contracts or cut the checks without board approval.”

Kay Kuns, Harold Clark’s attorney, said the evidence will show the allegations to be unfounded.

 

“No one in the indictment did anything criminally wrong,” Kuns said.

Calls to attorneys representing Cynthia Lynn Clark, of Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Bannan, of Vista, and Irwin, of Temecula, were not immediately returned.

Harold Leo Clark is also a Temecula resident.

After Cynthia Lynn Clark took a leave of absence in 2004, the school district found out about TurnKey’s financial troubles and stopped making payments. The company went bankrupt a year later.

The alleged scheme prompted a three-year investigation by the California Department of Justice’s special crimes unit.