Local News in Brief : Ex-Cashier for City Agency Guilty of Theft
A 24-year-old Shadow Hills woman accused of stealing more than $11,000 as a cashier for the City of Los Angeles was found guilty by a jury Tuesday on three felony charges.
Karen Hooper Constantine, who was assigned to the Van Nuys office of the city’s Building and Safety Department, was convicted of grand theft and two counts of falsifying records. She faces up to three years and eight months in prison when she is sentenced April 14 by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard A. Adler.
Constantine altered 113 building-permit receipts from July, 1983, to July, 1984, reducing the listed amount of city fees collected in an attempt to cover up her theft of $11,148, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bradford E. Stone said.
She left her job soon after the thefts were discovered in a spot audit, Stone said.
Defense attorney Mark Bledstein argued that Constantine did not take any money, just changed the records at the end of the day to account for innocent accounting mistakes.
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