S. Pasadena Official Pleads No Contest to Embezzlement

The former executive director of the South Pasadena senior citizen’s center entered a no-contest plea Wednesday to charges she embezzled about $18,000.

Throwing herself at the mercy of the court, Leonor Escalante, 62, entered the plea to one count of embezzlement and six charges of providing false evidence to authorities. Sentencing will be Dec. 4 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Randy Baron said it is unlikely that Escalante will receive the maximum sentence of six years in state prison, given her age and lack of criminal record. But the prosecutor said he cannot ignore her use of city coffers to bolster her bank account and pay credit card bills over a six-year period as well as her efforts to cover up the embezzlement during a police investigation by providing false receipts.

“I anticipate I will be asking for state prison time,” Baron said.

South Pasadena has already been rocked this year by a Police Department sex scandal, allegations of a police cover-up of a crash involving a politically well-connected police officer, and another embezzlement case involving the former assistant city manager Charles M. Conn. After pleading guilty to embezzling $12,250 from a public organization’s fund, Conn in August was sentenced to five years probation and 400 hours of community service.

Escalante’s attorney, Jason P. Halpern, hopes that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carlos Moreno will take a similar tack with Escalante.

“A decision to do what was done today was done in the best interest of justice and my client,” Halpern said. “I’m comfortable a judge, given a probation and sentencing report, will be fair and reasonable, which has always been my concern.”

However, Escalante’s case may have reverberated through the town because it cast a cloud over the city’s reputation as a safe and welcome place for senior citizens. And while Conn confessed to police, prosecutors say Escalante provided false receipts to explain account discrepancies, leading to six additional charges.