Ex-H.B. detective sentenced to probation and community service for stealing from officers’ donation fund

A former Huntington Beach police detective was sentenced Thursday to community service and informal probation after he pleaded guilty to stealing money from fellow officers who were pooling the funds to buy a gift for a retiring colleague.

Mario Ricci, 49, of Los Angeles pleaded guilty during a pretrial hearing in Orange County Superior Court to a misdemeanor count of petty theft, according to court records.

Ricci will be on informal probation for a year and was ordered to complete 240 hours of community service and pay an unspecified amount of restitution, court records show.

Authorities said Ricci stole donations out of an envelope over several days in December 2016 at the Huntington Beach Police Department headquarters, where he was a detective.

Other officers noticed Dec. 8 that money was missing from the donation envelope, the Orange County district attorney’s office said. The next day, they launched an investigation and documented the denominations and serial numbers of the bills in the envelope.

Police investigators approached Ricci as he was leaving the department Dec. 15 and found he was in possession of bills that were documented as being in the envelope, authorities said.

The district attorney’s office said last year that Ricci no longer worked at the Police Department.

“Although we are saddened by this incident, I am confident the actions of this one person are not reflective of the 350 men and women who proudly serve our community on behalf of the Police Department each and every day,” Police Chief Robert Handy said in a statement Thursday. “The Huntington Beach Police Department strives for full trust and confidence of the community we serve, and we hold all our employees to a high standard of ethics and integrity.”

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN