VENTURA : Ex-Head of Drug Program Sentenced

The former head of a Ventura drug and alcohol treatment program was sentenced Monday to 90 days in the county’s work-furlough program for falsely obtaining about $13,000 in county grants.

Thomas E. Chaloupka, 48, could have received up to three years in prison for his conviction on four counts of making false claims. The county probation department had recommended a 180-day sentence.

But Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath said Chaloupka deserved only 90 days, in part because he did not personally benefit from the fraud. “If I thought his heart was black in this case, I would agree with 180 days,” McGrath said. “I don’t . . . but I don’t think he’s a Robin Hood, either.”

According to court records, Chaloupka submitted the false claims in June, 1990, to benefit Khepera House, a drug program that he had operated for eight years in the Ventura Avenue area. About $17,000 worth of claims were made under a program aimed at providing such facilities with better furniture and other amenities.

But many of the invoices submitted with the claims were either fabricated or inflated, court records say, and only about $4,000 in claims were substantiated. County auditors who uncovered the fraud said they could not determine how the money was spent because the program’s books were too jumbled.

When the fraud was detected, Chaloupka left Khepera House and the county cut off $82,000 a year in operating funds that the program had been receiving. Dale McFadden, the new head of the program, told a probation investigator that Khepera House is near bankruptcy.

Chaloupka was convicted Sept. 25 after a jury trial.

In announcing the sentence, McGrath pointed to Chaloupka’s record of getting off drugs and alcohol and helping others to do so. Chaloupka’s attorney, William O’Neill III, described him as “a man who ran afoul of the law while trying to do good.”

The work-furlough sentence will allow Chaloupka to continue in his new job as a drug counselor in Pasadena while spending nights in county custody.