Ex-Dodger Worker Gets Prison for Grand Theft

The former payroll chief for the Los Angeles Dodgers was sentenced Friday to 16 months in state prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring with six other former employees to embezzle $332,583 from the baseball club.

As part of the plea-bargain, Edward Peter Campos, 46, of Glendale also made restitution to the club of $132,000 he had earned through profit-sharing, stock options and retirement funds.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert M. Youngdahl said Campos could have been sentenced to five years had he been convicted after a trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. In that event, he could not have been ordered to make restitution, according to the prosecutor.

“He bought himself off by paying the money and in a sense mortgaging his own future,” Youngdahl said, noting that Campos is unlikely to be employed again as an accountant.

Campos was the last of nine defendants in the Dodgers case to arrange a plea-bargain. He was accused of conspiring with other employees between 1983 and 1985 to add extra money to their paychecks by crediting themselves for hours that they did not work.

The prosecution also said Campos, who was charged with grand theft, conspiracy and failure to pay income taxes, added fictitious names and names of employees’ girlfriends to the club’s payroll.

Youngdahl said that it is not known how much Campos received in kickbacks from his co-conspirators because “everybody paid him in cash.”

Andrew George Gaspar, 36, of Monrovia, a former security guard, pleaded guilty to grand theft earlier this year and was also sentenced to 16 months in prison. He did not make restitution payments, Youngdahl said.

Three other security guards, a ticket office supervisor and two girlfriends of Dodger employees pleaded either guilty or no contest in the case, but were not given jail terms. They were all placed on probation and ordered to make restitution in amounts ranging from $500 to $15,000.