VALLEY ROUNDUP : Antelope Valley : Ex-County Worker to Serve Time for Calls to Psychics
An Antelope Valley woman accused of running up $120,000 in calls made to psychic hotlines was sentenced to 30 days in county jail and five years of probation Thursday.
Cheryl Burnham, 39, who worked for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department, was also ordered to pay $97,972 in restitution to the county by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor.
Burnham pleaded guilty to making 2,500 calls to various psychic hotlines between June 1997 and November 1998. The calls were discovered during a routine audit of the county phone system and traced to Burnham’s work area in McClaren Hall, a children’s crisis center in El Monte.
Burnham circumvented the call-blocking system designed to prevent unauthorized use of phone lines by using unrestricted computer modem lines, authorities said. As a result of the case, modem lines are now closely monitored.
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