Woman Gets 30 Months, Fine for Defrauding L.A. Unified

An independent study program director who bilked the Los Angeles Unified School District out of at least $780,000 with a phantom-student scheme was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison and three years’ probation by a U.S. District Court judge, who scolded her for trying to run a scam even at her sentencing.

Minutes before the sentencing, Arnese Clemon pleaded with Senior Judge David V. Kenyon to impose merely a year of home detention so that she could continue to care for two girls for whom she serves as legal guardian.

But Kenyon was not swayed, accusing Clemon of using the children, the offspring of one of her phony students, “to get what she wants, [which was] kind of a theme through all of this.”

The fraud was an organized plan “which carried with it one deceit after another,” he said. “It was designed to make the defendant look good and caring . . . [but] involved robbing at-risk children of their right to an education.”

Clemon had pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud stemming from using fake records and schoolwork to charge the district for hundreds of students who never attended the South-Central Los Angeles program, known as the Institute for Successful Living. Her sentence was longer than called for under a plea agreement, although the original charges--since reduced--could have carried penalties of up to 15 years in prison. Clemon also was assessed a $780,000 fine.

In the five years since the home study program was closed, district critics have used it as a metaphor for institutional sickness.

The debacle also figured in a months-long delay in the school board’s appointment of Sid Thompson as superintendent in 1993. Thompson was the top administrator in charge of independent study when the fraud occurred and made decisions to continue the program’s funding even after some members of his staff had expressed concerns.

The scandal prompted the district to halt its practice of contracting with private groups to run independent study programs. Instead, an array of such programs now are run by the district.

Clemon’s sentencing effectively closes an embarrassing chapter in district history because Assistant U.S. Atty. Maurice Suh said no further indictments are expected. Yet the allegations of district wrongdoing are unlikely to wane, at least until Thompson retires in June.

“I’ve had this on my plate for five years,” said David Michels, a scientist who took on the issue as a personal crusade. “I’ll stick to it at least until Sid’s gone.”

Michels picked up the cause first pushed by Don Martin, an administrator in charge of independent study who reported bookkeeping problems to his bosses as early as 1990. Martin subsequently filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the district. It was settled out of court for less than $50,000 after he died of cancer in February 1996.

That the investigation is now over infuriates Michels, who had hoped it would lead to indictments of district officials or of Clemon’s brother, a U.S. district judge in Atlanta. For more than two years, investigators said they might recoup some of the money and reported that some of their focus was on Judge U. W. Clemon, who was paid more than $450,000 from the institute’s coffers.

Judge Clemon has maintained he was simply paid rent for the program’s sites, which were in buildings he owned, and no charges were brought against him.

Suh said the government was never able to determine how much of the $3.2 million paid to the ISL program over the years was obtained by fraud, beyond the $780,000 that investigators initially nailed down.

“It was very difficult to determine exactly how much was fraud,” Suh said, citing a commingling of accounts that enabled Clemon to use the program’s funds as her personal bank account.

When Clemon pleaded guilty last year to mail fraud charges related to transport of fraudulent documents, she continued to blame her staff, insisting that she became aware only after the fact that teacher and student records had been forged.

But her chief assistant, Dewey Hughes, has said he only followed her orders. He is appealing his November sentence of nine months in jail, three years’ probation and an identical fine.

Clemon’s sentencing Monday came after months of postponements while a doctor evaluated her condition after several strokes and while authorities investigated her attorney’s assertion that the girls under her guardianship, now ages 10 and 12, would suffer if they ended up in foster care.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Kenyon said: “There’s no question that those two young ladies are going to suffer more in their lives . . . [but Clemon] had her choice to stay at home with the girls by not involving herself in this.”