Jury Finds No Misuse of Funds : Owner of Home for Retarded Acquitted of Diverting $1.2 Million

The former owner of a Pomona home for severely retarded adults has been acquitted in Los Angeles Superior Court of charges that she diverted $1.2 million in state funds to her own use.

Jurors deliberated 3 1/2 days to find Burnell McColloum, 62, not guilty on nine counts of grand theft by false pretense in the operation of the Health Spot Guest Home, which was closed in August, 1984.

“She’s very bitter. Very disenchanted,” McColloum’s lawyer, Dan Stormer, said Tuesday. “She’s very glad there’s an acquittal. But her position was that she should not have been in a position of getting an acquittal.”

The state removed the 44 residents of McColloum’s home in August, 1984, after an audit by the state Department of Developmental Services alleged that she had improperly billed the state for funds to train developmentally disabled patients from April, 1983, through April, 1984.

False Claim

“I think the audit was a farce,” Stormer said. “The claim that she didn’t spend the money for her clients was absolutely false. Every dime was spent on the facility or her clients. She only took a salary of $15,000 a year.”

The attorney contends that the state closed the home because McColloum “is a black woman, making what appeared to be a lot of money, and they wanted to use her as an example of what could happen if you don’t kiss the feet of state officials.”

Stormer maintained that his client had been a “sacrificial lamb” in a controversy involving the department and supposedly autonomous, private nonprofit regional centers that allocate state funds to purchase services for patients.

“The Deukmejian Administration was trying to limit what regional centers could do,” the attorney declared. “Ultimately, the state Supreme Court found that effort to restrict regional centers was unlawful.”

Parcels of Land

Prosectors who charged McColloum in March, 1984, suggested that she may have used the money to buy up to 17 parcels of real property in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

During the trial, however, according to Stormer, the defense showed that McColloum owned 13 parcels, not 17, and that 12 of those had been purchased before his client had entered any agreement with the state.

As for the final parcel, he said McColloum planned to use it for a clinic for the developmentally disabled.