Former Director of Laotian Agency Faces Embezzlement Counts

The former executive director of a community services agency serving Southeast Asian refugees has been charged with misappropriating public monies, embezzlement and grand theft, according to a complaint filed by the state attorney general’s office.

Kao Thao, 30, has been accused of fraudulently appropriating funds and property from Lao Family Community Inc. between Jan. 26 and May 31 while he was national director of the organization, state prosecutors said Thursday in a prepared statement.

The complaint against Thao was filed last Friday in Central Orange County Municipal Court, state prosecutors said.

Thao came under investigation after an audit by the state Department of Education, which had contracted with the Lao Family Community for child care, according to state prosecutors.

The Lao Family Community is a private organization that contracts with county and state agencies to provide social and educational services and job training for Southeast Asian refugees and other community members. The organization has offices in cities throughout the state, including Alameda, Merced, Modesto, Oakland, Richmond, Riverside, Sacramento, Stockton and Visalia.

Lao Family Community is considered the primary community service organization for Orange County’s Laotian community, which is estimated at less than 10,000 members.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said Lao Family was the group to whom his agency would go when dealing with community relations issues.

Thao was scheduled to be a panelist at a Sept. 12 conference in Garden Grove on Southeast Asian-police relations that is being co-sponsored by the state Department of Justice and the county commission, Kennedy said.

“We had no inkling there were any problems there,” Kennedy said Thursday.

Thao, who was arrested last week, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Central Orange County Municipal Court.

If convicted of all four felony embezzlement counts, Thao faces up to four years in prison, the state prosecutors said.

Times staff writer Kristina Lindgren contributed to this story.