These bad deeds don’t go unpunished

In pleading for leniency from a judge, Priscilla Rocha reminded the court what drove her to steal more than a quarter-million dollars from the Clark County School District in the first place: a staggering sense of entitlement.

District Judge Susan Johnson showed mercy, all right — on the taxpayers who’ve been pilfered by public officials too many times to count. By rejecting Rocha’s nauseating rationalizations last week, sending the 67-year-old woman to prison for between four and 10 years and ordering her to pay full restitution, Johnson provided the hardest slap at corruption that valley residents have seen in years.

Rocha pleaded guilty to theft after being caught plundering the school district through her position overseeing Adult English Language Acquisition Services. She stole fees from students that were supposed to pay for dictionaries. She stole tax dollars from the district through bogus purchase orders. She stole equipment. According to the indictment that charged her, Rocha was billing hours to ghost employees as far back as 2007 to enrich herself, her family and friends.

She got away with it for so long, in part, because she had the complete trust of so many. She had worked for the school district for more than 20 years. She had served as an elected member of the State Board of Education. She had been active in the Hispanic community and worked on behalf of the poor. She had directed both the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Hispanic Association for Bilingual Literacy and Education. She had been recognized at the White House.

But public service and community service weren’t enriching enough for Rocha. She felt she deserved more.

More things. More comfort. More money.

On Tuesday, Colin Haynes, a financial investigator for the Metropolitan Police Department, provided detailed testimony about the incredible amount of work Rocha put into her scheme, which funded her mortgage, car payments, gifts and a salon that she staffed with someone who worked on the school district’s time. Much of the scam involved paying language tutors for work they didn’t do.

Rocha admitted to stealing about $132,000 as part of a plea agreement that dropped 50 of 52 felony counts. But Haynes said Rocha stole considerably more — nearly $300,000.

“We were extremely conservative when it came to the amount of money that we alleged Ms. Rocha stole, misappropriated or provided to her friends or for her own purposes,” prosecutor Jay Raman said in court Tuesday, as reported by the Review-Journal’s Neal Morton. The district attorney’s office didn’t have enough records to identify even more theft.

And in her heart, Rocha believed that all her good work — including all the hours for which she collected a salary and amassed a pension — should have offset her prolific crimes.

“What I did in this community was not to aggrandize myself (or) for some lavish cars and living in a mansion,” a tearful Rocha told the judge Wednesday, arguing that some of the money she stole was donated to charity. “Everything I did, I did out of passion for my community and the disadvantaged children. “It’s not fair that they’re punishing me for all the years of advocacy. … That hurts me.”

Rocha’s lack of remorse was stunning. She was no Robin Hood. She kept huge sums of cash for herself because she believed in her heart that she deserved it. And because she deserved that money, she didn’t deserve to go to prison.

Johnson told Rocha that a career of good deeds “doesn’t erase what you’ve done.”

“You were a beacon of this community. You were a leader, and it is no wonder there wasn’t sufficient oversight over you,” the judge said.

Recall that earlier this year, former Family Court Judge Steven Jones received a federal prison sentence of just 26 months for using his office to help a group of con men defraud unsuspecting people of about $3 million. And he got that light sentence after enjoying two years of paid leave from his elected job. Jones’ punishment was too light to qualify as a wrist slap.

Like Jones, Rocha will receive a taxpayer-funded pension for life despite her crimes. Under a new state law, public employees who steal from taxpayers will forfeit their pensions. But the law isn’t retroactive.

Perhaps Johnson’s righteous punishment, as well as that new law, will discourage public officials from committing similar crimes in the future — and discourage the sense of entitlement that drives them.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV.