Ex-Official Pleads No Contest in Misspending Case : Courts: Former Bradbury city manager agrees to pay restitution in exchange for having four other felony counts dropped. She could get a two-year prison sentence.

A former Bradbury city manager who used the town’s credit card to ring up tens of thousands of dollars on personal luxuries such as fine china and designer sunglasses pleaded no contest Friday to felony charges of misspending public money and falsifying documents to conceal her actions.

As part of a bargain struck with the district attorney’s office, Aurora (Dolly) Vollaire agreed to pay the city $53,462.11 in restitution. In exchange, the district attorney’s office has dropped four other felony counts against Vollaire, who could be sentenced to up to two years in state prison.

“I’m satisfied with the plea bargain--she has saved taxpayers further grief by admitting to her crime,” Bradbury Mayor Beatrice LaPisto-Kirtley said. “The money she’s paying back will go directly into the city budget and help pay for services.”

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Vollaire’s attorney, Rayford Fountain, said he will ask the judge for a sentence that would not involve a jail term but require community service.

“(Vollaire’s) mental health is not good and she is under the care of a mental health provider,” Fountain said. “She’s depressed and emotionally shattered, and I don’t think she could have stood the stress of a protracted trial.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Straughn said the restitution represents the amount she and investigators felt they could easily prove was misspent by Vollaire over the last four years.

“I’m relieved. Going through all the records and receipts--back to 1983--was a massive amount of work,” Straughn said. “I only went back four years because the bulk of the expenditures occurred within that time. We had to contact store owners as far away as the Virgin Islands.”

Money for the restitution will be taken from the estimated $85,000 Vollaire has accumulated in a retirement account held by the city of Bradbury, an affluent San Gabriel Valley enclave of 938 residents where Vollaire worked for two decades before she was fired last spring for the misspending.

The Times reported last year that Vollaire misspent thousands of dollars on personal items. City records contained a host of cut and altered receipts for Vollaire’s purchases, but some bore the insignia of boutiques and upscale department stores such as Bullock’s, Tiffany’s and Saks, and included items from designer dresses to red shoes.

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Of the six counts filed against Vollaire in January, the district attorney’s office dropped charges of grand theft, embezzlement by a public officer, keeping false accounts of public money and falsification and concealment of public records. Had she been charged with all six counts, Vollaire, 54, would have faced a maximum sentence of five years in state prison.

Vollaire entered her pleas Friday morning in Los Angeles Municipal Court just before a date was to have been set for her preliminary hearing.

On May 20, Superior Court Judge Gordon Ringer, is scheduled to decide whether to admit Vollaire to a state prison for 90 days for an evaluation or order a recommendation on her punishment from the county Probation Department.

In the meantime, Vollaire, whose no contest plea means she is barred from holding public office, will remain free on her own recognizance.

In addition to the criminal trial, the city of Bradbury has sued Vollaire for $84,000 in restitution, plus interest and punitive damages.