Grand Jury Indicts Coachella Valley Civic Leaders in Pyramid Scheme

Nine people, including some of the Coachella Valley’s high-profile civic leaders, were indicted Friday by a Riverside County grand jury on charges of operating an illegal pyramid scheme in which $1 million changed hands.

The Ponzi scheme, sometimes known as the “Gift Exchange Program,” involved more than 1,000 people in Riverside County, many of whom invested $2,000 apiece with assurances they would make a $16,000 profit as they recruited other investors, county prosecutors said.

This scheme was particularly offensive, prosecutors said, because its leaders were community figures who used their positions of influence to entice or coerce others to join.

Among those indicted were David George, president of the College of the Desert community college in Palm Desert, and Matthew Monica Jr., a trustee of the Desert Sands Unified School District in Indio who is a counselor at the College of the Desert.

Also indicted were two officials with the McCullum Theater for the Performing Arts in Palm Desert--Executive Director Nancy Moen Dolensek and controller Vickie Lynn Brown--and Dolores Ann Ballesteros, who was fired as superintendent of the Desert Sands school district after admitting her participation in the pyramid scheme.

“Some people . . . treated the pyramid as a full-time job and profited more than $50,000 through criminal activity,” said Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Kotkin. “None of the institutions were at fault for the activities that their employees engaged in,” he added.

Kotkin said “a significant number of employees” of the McCullum Theater and the College of the Desert and the school district were involved.

The nine suspects will be arraigned Tuesday. Each faces one felony charge carrying a maximum prison sentence of three years.