Former S. Pasadena Official Sentenced for Embezzlement

The former executive director of a senior citizens center in South Pasadena was sentenced to 120 days of house arrest Wednesday for embezzling about $18,000 from the city over six years.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carlos Moreno spared Leonor Escalante, 62, from serving time in state prison, but he also ordered her to pay back the money plus a $200 fine and perform 400 hours of community service.

Escalante, one of several South Pasadena officials whose misconduct led local observers this summer to dub the normally quiet San Gabriel Valley hamlet “little Chicago,” faced a maximum of six years in state prison.

“The interest of justice was served,” said Escalante’s attorney, Jason Halpern. He would not comment further and Deputy Dist. Atty. Randall Baron could not be reached.

South Pasadena’s senior center serves 75 to 100 elderly daily in a city where one-quarter of the residents are over age 55. The center, with a $350,000 budget, provides leisure, nutrition, transportation and educational activities.

But prosecutors said between 1989 and 1995 Escalante drained money from the center’s funds and used it to bolster her personal bank accounts and pay off credit card bills.

They say the embezzlement only came to an end when South Pasadena police searched Escalante’s home in September 1995 and audited her department weeks later. Escalante, who was accused of forging receipts to cover her tracks, then resigned.

She was charged in September and pleaded no contest to one count of embezzlement and six counts of providing false information to authorities in October.

The case hit hard in a city that prides itself as a haven for retirees. South Pasadena also this summer faced a police department sex scandal, an alleged cover-up of a politically well-connected police officer’s traffic crash and embezzlement by another city official--former assistant city manager Charles Conn.

Conn, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges, also did not receive jail time.