Vista

Two employees from Vista Municipal Court were ordered Thursday to stand trial on eight counts of perjury and submitting false claims to the county.

Kathleen DeForge, a supervising clerk, and Jo A. Allen, the former secretary to the court administrator, were bound over to San Diego Superior Court after a preliminary hearing before Judge Robert Cooney.

The women’s cases are separate from the 27 counts of embezzlement and perjury charged against Allen’s former boss, William Hartford, 40, who lives in the Rainbow area near Fallbrook. Hartford has his preliminary hearing June 24.

The women are charged with billing San Diego County for about $700 for expenses at a Sacramento conference that had already been paid for by the Municipal Court Clerks Assn.

Wayne Low, the association’s treasurer, testified the association had not received any reimbursement from the women.

Also testifying was David Moore, a San Diego County auditor, who said Hartford approved payment by the county for some of the women’s expenses.

Allen, who lives in Oceanside, and DeForge, from Escondido, will be arraigned May 30. They have pleaded innocent.

Hartford abruptly resigned from his $55,000-a-year job Jan. 17 during the investigation by the district attorney’s office that was reportedly requested by judges in Vista Municipal Court.

Some of the counts against Hartford allege he submitted claims to the county for seminars that were actually used to pay his tuition at National University, where he was working toward a master’s degree.