PALMDALE : 2 Men Sentenced in Jobs Funding Theft

A Palmdale man was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Monday after pleading guilty to stealing thousands of dollars from a federally funded job-training program, authorities said.

Ronald Bible, 41, and Ezra Bolds, 65, of Los Angeles pleaded guilty to five felony counts of theft and conspiracy to steal from the Job Training Partnership Act program, Assistant U. S. Atty. Carol Gillam said.

Bolds was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and ordered to repay $12,500 to the program.

A scam run by Bolds and Bible resulted in the loss of nearly $150,000 from the program, which pays employers and placement agencies to provide jobs and training to unskilled workers, Gillam said. The government pays employers for training workers and reimburses them for half the workers’ salaries.

Bolds, who owned two video stores in Los Angeles, and Bible, a salesman in one of the stores, claimed to have recruited and trained more than 64 people between 1984 and 1987, Gillam said. “They would recruit friends and neighbors, take them down and do phony paperwork to show that these people were trained in the store and they were able to collect funds,” Gillam said.

Since their arrest in September, the two have been free on $25,000 bonds.

Bible, who faced a maximum of 13 years in prison, will surrender Friday, Gillam said, and Bolds, who faced a maximum sentence of 10 years, will surrender Aug. 9.