News Brief
Stockton Unified School District Trustee AngelAnn Flores was removed from her position following a felony conviction and sentencing for filing a false insurance claim, The Stockton Record reported. Flores was sentenced Monday to two years of probation and ordered to complete 120 hours of community service.
Flores was also charged with but acquitted of embezzlement and misusing public funds — charges that her attorneys argued were in retaliation for whistleblowing, the Record reported.
The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation, launched a criminal investigation into Stockton Unified in April 2023, after a state audit by the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) found evidence that fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred between July 2019 and April 2022.
The school district spent millions of dollars in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding on a contract for COVID-19 sanitation equipment provider IAQ Distribution, Inc. in 2021. FCMAT said the contract “should have been bid competitively,” but “the district and board ignored their own policies, procedures and past practice in order to award the contract to their preferred vendor.” IAQ wasn’t even a licensed contractor in California at the time the contract was awarded.
District employees shared concerns about the contract’s procurement process...
Trump falsely claims 274 FBI agents were placed in the January 6 crowd. DOJ report found no evidence FBI agents orchestrated the Capitol riot. 1,400 arrests made and 1,000 convictions tied to the...