Posted on 02/24/2005 8:19:18 PM PST by NormsRevenge
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) - A former school board president was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison for welfare fraud, violating campaign finance laws and lying about her academic background.
Cresia Green-Davis also was ordered to make about $200,000 in restitution and, unless her conviction is overturned she is barred from holding elected office in California.
She could have been sentenced to as much as 16 years in prison.
Green-Davis, 52, told Superior Court Judge Bob S. Bowers Jr. that she made bad choices out of a desire to help her family.
"I thought I did what I had to do for my sons," she said.
Her attorney asked the judge to reduce the sentence or grant probation, arguing that Green-Davis had spent most of her life as a "law-abiding citizen" and a good mother.
But Bowers noted the fraud occurred over a period of 5 1/2 years.
"That's hard to overcome," he said.
He also said her actions caused "tremendous harm" to people who needed limited public resources.
Jurors last month found Green-Davis fraudulently received at least $36,000 in welfare and other aid for the poor between November 1995 and April 2001. They also found her guilty of grand theft of personal property for falsely claiming to have earned a bachelor's degree when she was hired as a teacher by the Compton and Centinela Valley school districts.
She also had misdemeanor convictions on finance-reporting violations stemming from her Inglewood school board campaign.
Green-Davis was ordered to pay about $162,800 in restitution to the Compton and Centinela Valley school districts.
She also owes about $26,000 in restitution to the county for improperly receiving welfare in the form of cash and food stamps, and another $10,370 to the state for Medi-Cal services, prosecutor Jennifer Lentz Snyder said.
No party affiliation listed, hmmm?
No one gets to her high position without being a union,ACLU, card carrying liberal DEMOCRAT!!!!!
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