Court Clerk Admitted Theft, Official Says

A court clerk charged with stealing cash from a courthouse evidence vault has admitted embezzling $6,000 over a three-year period, according to court documents. But the same documents indicate authorities believe much more money might have been taken.

In an affidavit made public Friday, a district attorney’s investigator wrote that Fernando Tirado made bank transactions totaling $7,000 in May, even though his take-home pay was only $1,760 a month.

The affidavit also states that Tirado initially cooperated with investigators and offered to show them a ledger at his work that would indicate from which criminal cases he had stolen money. However, Tirado changed his mind and ceased cooperating with authorities, according to the documents.

Tirado, 32, of Oxnard, is charged with one count of embezzlement and is scheduled for arraignment next week. He is in custody at the Ventura County Jail, with bail set at $100,000.

A nine-year employee of the municipal and superior courts, Tirado came under suspicion earlier this month when a sealed evidence envelope opened during a drug trial was $20 short of the $420 it was supposed to contain.

Four court employees, including Tirado, had access to the vault that housed valuable evidence such as money and jewelry, according to an affidavit by investigator Dennis Fitzgerald of the district attorney’s office. Fitzgerald wrote that when he interviewed court employees, Tirado admitted taking not only the $420--part of which he repaid--but another $149 in cash from the same case.

Tirado said he took the money to pay personal debts, the affidavit states. When he returned the cash he “had forgotten what denominations had been involved so he just returned $20s,” Fitzgerald wrote in his affidavit seeking a warrant to search Tirado’s workstation.

That was the only time Tirado returned money he had taken, according to the affidavit.

Tirado also admitted a number of other embezzlements of cash from the evidence vault over a three-year period, which he “conservatively estimated” to total $6,000, Fitzgerald wrote.

Officials said Tirado became an assistant in the evidence exhibit area of the courthouse in November, 1992. One of his primary responsibilities was to arrange for the return of evidence to interested parties at the conclusion of a case, and for unclaimed money to be placed in the county’s general fund.

Sheila Gonzalez, court executive officer, told investigators that she knew of no money transfers to the general fund during the time Tirado was responsible for arranging them, Fitzgerald wrote.