Ex-Orange Unified Aide Convicted in Income Tax Case : Trial: School administrator received $70,000 in kickbacks for awarding school district contracts.

Former Orange Unified School District administrator Steven L. Presson was convicted in federal court Monday on income tax charges stemming from a scheme to award district contracts to a construction company in exchange for almost $70,000 worth of kickbacks.

Calling Presson’s testimony “unbelievable,” “pathological” and “incredible,” U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter found the ex-maintenance official guilty on two felony counts of failing to report $69,000 in income.

“It’s very sad that the school district had to be the victim. That bothers me much more than the taxes that ought to be collected by the government,” said Hatter, who presided over a five-week non-jury trial and heard from 20 witnesses.

Presson, who was dressed a gray-blue suit and stood quietly as the verdict was read, declined to comment on his conviction. His attorney, Marcia Brewer, said only that “the judge had his own perception of things.”

Brewer contended that Presson did not intend to file false income tax returns, hence there was no criminal violation of the law. In her closing argument, she said her client’s omission amounted only to a lack of judgment.

Presson’s sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 27. He faces a maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine and three years in prison for each count of filing false income tax returns.

The non-jury trial stems from an Orange County case in which Presson was convicted of masterminding a scheme to award Orange Unified School District contracts to selected companies in exchange for gifts and favors.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Reese Davis alleged that in 1982 and 1983, the defendant failed to report the income he received in kickbacks from a construction company while he was an Orange Unified maintenance officer.

Reese Davis said in his closing argument that the accused employed “fraud and falsity at every step of the bid process and at every turn of the process, (the company involved) was making money off it.”

Presson was convicted earlier this year in Orange County Superior Court on seven counts of embezzlement and conspiracy, including five felony charges. He received a suspended sentence of one year in Orange County Jail and three years of unsupervised probation. He also was ordered to pay $9,900 in restitution to the school district.

Two contractors in the case, Ronald Brock and William A. Gustafson, were convicted in April on five counts of embezzlement and conspiracy, including three felony charges. They received similar jail terms but were required to pay no fines.

During the federal trial, Davis demonstrated that between 1980 and 1984, the school district awarded 40 contracts worth $1.3 million to Brock & Gustafson Construction Co., more than twice the amount awarded to the next closest bidder.

The prosecution argued that in exchange for turning district contracts over to Brock & Gustafson, Presson received at least 79 payments, including payments to his credit card, a check to his wife for $500 and installments paid to his mortgage company for a Lake Havasu trailer home.