Westminster : Fraud Sentence Begun by Private Investigator

Westminster private investigator Deanna Short has begun serving 120 days in Orange County Jail on a misdemeanor charge of food-stamp fraud.

Municipal Judge Edward L. Laird accepted Short’s guilty plea to the misdemeanor last December but dismissed four other counts of felony welfare and Medi-Cal fraud, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dave Brent said. Laird also placed Short on three years’ probation.

Short is named as a defendant along with Sheriff Brad Gates in a $10-million civil rights lawsuit brought in 1983 by Orange County Municipal Judge Bobby Youngblood, private investigator George Patrick Bland and Santa Ana College instructor George Wright. That lawsuit is pending in Los Angeles federal district court.