Grand Jury Clears Former Agency Chief of Fraud

The Ventura County Grand Jury has found insufficient evidence to file criminal fraud charges against the former director of a local job-training agency, prosecutors said Wednesday.

John Chase, 48, former executive director of the Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County, was accused of illegally collecting salaries from two government-funded agencies simultaneously and of secretly awarding his own private company a $10,000 contract.

The grand jury found that Chase worked for both the job-training council and the separate Business Labor Council at the same time, collecting about $80,000 a year. But Chase juggled the two jobs and fulfilled his legal obligations to both, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Geb said.

Grand jurors also found that the job-training council’s contract with Chase’s consulting firm was legal because the contract was signed by Harry Brockwell, then chairman of the job-training council, not by Chase.

During its investigation in January and early February, the grand jury considered documents from the U.S. Department of Labor, a highly critical state audit and testimony from numerous witnesses, Geb said.

“But the evidence just didn’t prove that he committed any of these crimes,” Geb said. “Personally, I really don’t see it. . . . It looks like both (agencies) were satisfied with his service.”

Chase could not be reached for comment. His attorney, George Eskin, said Chase should feel vindicated by the grand jury’s decision.

“But you can’t remove the taint of having been accused,” Eskin said.

In a related development, the chairman of the job-training council’s board of directors said the agency will not have to repay the bulk of $357,000 in expenses questioned by state auditors last year.

An appeals unit at the state Employment Development Department has discredited most of the audit’s findings that Chase improperly spent $77,500 in federal money and approved another $279,000 in questionable expenditures during the late 1980s, council Chairman William Hewston said.

“The state has found some gross errors in their auditing process,” Hewston said. “They counted the same dollar two, three and four times. The state is embarrassed over this, I think.”

State officials could not be reached late Wednesday.

Hewston said he believes that the job-training council will eventually have to repay only a fraction of the challenged expenses, because the money was spent for job-training programs.

Hewston, however, said he still believes that Chase made mistakes when running the job-training council from 1984 until he was fired in 1990 amid allegations that he had misused government funds and had kept his dual employment secret.

“I still feel there was a moral and ethical wrong on the part of Chase with the multiple jobs, regardless of whether the district attorney is prosecuting or not,” Hewston said.

Eskin, Chase’s attorney, said he would not take issue with Hewston’s comments.

“At the time it seemed right,” Eskin said. “But looking back on it now, I think he would say, ‘I shouldn’t have done this or I shouldn’t have done that.’ I think John would be more circumspect if put in the same position again.”

Chase probably would not allow the job-training council to enter into a contract with his private consulting firm, Eskin said. And Chase would make sure that the job-training council’s board of directors knew he was working more than one job at a time, the lawyer said.

The job-training council, whose 19 board members are from public agencies and private companies, distributes about $6.5 million in federal grants annually to companies that train poor people and help them find jobs.

The grand jury’s decision not to prosecute apparently concludes a federal inquiry begun in February, 1990. In a concurrent civil investigation, state auditors found that Chase was paid by three employers at the same time, earning $168,597 over 2 1/2 years.

He not only received salaries from the Business Labor Council and the job-training council, but from the Private Industry Council, an agency the jobs council was supposed to have replaced in 1984 but which Chase quietly kept alive, the audit said.

U.S. Department of Labor investigators turned their case over to county prosecutors 16 months ago. After a series of meetings and memos, Geb said, the investigators narrowed their allegations to the three charges involving double employment and the $10,000 contract.