Questions Raised on Court-Ordered Community Work : Judicial system: Former supervisor at animal shelter pleads no contest to helping conceal that assignments were not being performed.

A former supervisor of a Los Angeles County animal shelter in Baldwin Park pleaded no contest Monday to a felony charge that he prepared false documents concealing the fact that court-ordered community service work assigned at the shelter was not being performed.

Jaime Meraz, 44, a Chino resident who is a 20-year employee of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control, entered his plea before Municipal Court Judge Rand Schrader, who set sentencing for July 2 in Superior Court.

The case, like the controversy last month over actress Zsa Zsa Gabor’s performance of community service work after slapping a Beverly Hills police officer, raised more questions about how well court-ordered community service work is monitored.

An official with the Los Angeles County Probation Department said action will soon be taken to improve oversight of the referral system, which was responsible for an estimated 52,000 community service sentences last year.

Although the issue in Gabor’s case was whether her fund-raising activities for a Venice program for the elderly met the requirements of her sentence to perform community service, the issue in the Meraz case was whether a county employee wrongly certified that court-ordered service had been performed.

Meraz’s case is related to charges leveled a year ago against one of his Baldwin Park shelter employees, Jorge A. Gamont, who was accused in June, 1989, of accepting bribes from three people assigned to do community service work as an alternative to jail sentences.

Gamont pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of falsifying evidence and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

According to Deputy Dist. Atty. Reid A. Rose of the special investigations division, which investigates cases of official misconduct, there was no evidence showing that Meraz knew of the bribes.

But, Rose said, “As manager of the shelter, he was responsible for approving the referral forms verifying service had been performed. . . . He was aware the work was not being performed.”

Meraz on Monday had no comment. “Mr. Meraz never knowingly did anything wrong,” said his attorney, William A. Hinz. “He never benefited one iota.” Hinz declined to elaborate.

Officials in the district attorney’s office and the county Probation Department said no officials there monitor community-service sentences, usually imposed for misdemeanor cases such as traffic violations, driving while intoxicated or petty theft.

The monitoring falls to the seven community volunteer centers--all members of the Volunteer Centers of Southern California--which are under contract with the Probation Department, said Carol Koelle, a regional director of the department.

“We expect them to do whatever monitoring is necessary to make sure that people do their time,” Koelle said.

But Lenore Jacoby, head of one of the seven centers--the Volunteer Center of Greater Pomona Valley--said that although the number of community service referrals climbs steadily, with an 8% increase projected for this year, the centers “are paid a very small amount . . . $7 or $8 a case. . . . That leaves little money to do follow-up monitoring.”

Mike Wada, a Hacienda-La Puente School District official who is familiar with the district’s court-referral program, said: “There are people who take advantage of the system. You’d really need to monitor almost 24 hours a day to make sure there isn’t hanky-panky going on.”

De-De Hicks, president of the Volunteer Centers of Southern California and head of another contracting center, said, however, that cases such as Baldwin Park were “an isolated incident,” and that the community-service programs were “one of the most problem-free anyone could ask for.”

But, Koelle said, “We are concerned with instances of highly inappropriate or improper behavior.” She said that she and other probation department officials hoped to have a plan for better oversight by mid-June.

Wada said his program has been making community-service referrals to the Baldwin Park shelter, but added that its status as a referral agency would now be reviewed.

Meraz was transferred from Baldwin Park in 1989 after Gamont was charged with bribery, county animal control spokesman Bob Ballinger said. Despite his conviction, Gamont remains a department employee, Ballinger said.

Meraz was also Baldwin Park supervisor during a period in 1988 when a monthlong county audit of the shelter found 145 animals, mostly cats and dogs, were apparently missing and could not be accounted for.

Until mid-May, Meraz was assigned tasks such as overseeing department vehicles, Ballinger said, but then he was named deputy manager at the county’s shelter in Downey. Ballinger called this “a lateral move, not a promotion,” and said the department will not consider any change in Meraz’s employment status until after the sentencing.

Meraz faces up to three years in prison on the charge. But the district attorney has recommended that he be sentenced to three years’ probation, a $500 fine and, ironically, 100 hours of community service.