The former Cobb County Juvenile Court administrator pleaded guilty Monday to racketeering and fraud for creating false invoices and approving grant money expenditures for work that was not done.
Superior Court Judge Ann Harris sentenced Mea Fagiola to seven years probation after Fagiola pleaded guilty to racketeering and fraud.
Fagiola did not personally receive any of the money but she made up invoices and signed off on checks to contractors. She said she expected the work to be done eventually and was just spending the money before the grant expired and was lost to the court.
Fagiola was fined $10,000 but she was not ordered to pay restitution. Officials said in court, however, that the county may sue her to recoup some of the $168,000 in grant money if the federal or state governments attempt to reclaim the lost grant funds.
“It certainly, hopefully, puts an end to a sad day for us in the superior court and … for the juvenile court,” said court administrator Tom Charron, who was Fagiola’s boss.
Fagiola was sentenced under the First Offender Act, which means these crimes will be erased from her record once she has completed her sentence.
Fagiola was one of four people named in a 27-count racketeering indictment returned in December.
One of the four, former Juvenile Court contractor James Bush Jr., pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to defraud the state and to theft by deception. Bush was sentenced to two years probation and was ordered to return $18,000 he was paid to supervise juvenile probationers. Charron said Bush has paid back the money.
Deborah Ponder, the one-time executive director of a now-disbanded charity, is scheduled to enter a plea on Tuesday. Ponder once ran the charity Reconnecting Families, which provided services to families involved with the court.
The board of Reconnecting Families voted in February to dissolve the charity because the negative publicity surrounding its ties tot he court had cause donors to abandon it.
Felony charges remain against another former contractor, therapist Carrie Kennedy. She also was charged with racketeering and theft
The charges are the result of an investigation Cobb's district attorney, Vic Reynolds, started last summer, after Laura Murphree, then-recently hired to oversee Juvenile Court operations, found potential criminal activity while following up on employees' complaints of a "toxic work environment."
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