Misappropriation Of Funds

For the second time in four weeks, a mid-level White House aide has resigned under a cloud, this time for allegedly misusing money provided to a previous employer by the U.S. Agency for International Development. White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said Friday that Felipe Sixto, who began work at the White House in July as associate director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, had resigned March 20.

The Service Employees International Union has accused the head of its largest California local of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in an alleged corruption scheme that included payments to firms owned by his relatives and expenditures on his Hawaiian wedding and a Beverly Hills cigar club. Tyrone Freeman has been removed from the payroll of the Los Angeles-based local and faces formal dismissal pending an internal hearing, a union spokeswoman said.

The pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles apologized to his congregants Sunday for any embarrassment caused by disclosures that he had used church credit cards for sizable personal expenses and had failed to pay federal taxes for several years. Pastor John J. Hunter, 51, used church credit cards to pay for at least $122,000 in personal expenses, including family vacations, clothes, jewelry, bikes and auto supplies, The Times reported Sunday.

Retreating from his own dismissal order, a federal judge has granted a harbor-area activist the chance to reopen a lawsuit alleging that the Port of Los Angeles misappropriated $1.2 billion in government funds to build a giant cargo terminal. U.S. District Judge S. James Otero ruled this month that Stanley D. Mosler of Rancho Palos Verdes can resume his false-claims case if he withdraws an appeal and hires an attorney for the rest of the litigation.

Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn accused his board colleagues Monday of misappropriating money that should have gone toward a sewer-conversion project in El Rio, a small blue-collar community north of Oxnard. Flynn, whose 5th District includes Oxnard and El Rio, said county officials reneged on a four-year promise to provide as much as $4 million to convert households in El Rio from using septic tanks to sewer lines. Instead, only $1.65 million was spent on the conversion.

Texas Southern University's former chief financial officer was convicted in Houston of misusing funds to help the school's ex-president lavishly furnish and landscape her home. Quintin Wiggins faces a punishment range of probation to life in prison. A sentencing hearing will be held today. Prosecutors said Wiggins diverted $286,000 at the school into accounts that then-President Priscilla Slade used to buy furniture, landscaping and a security system for her home.

The trial of retired Capistrano Unified School District Supt. James Fleming and a former assistant on felony charges stemming from an "enemies" list of district critics they allegedly compiled will begin Oct. 29, a judge ruled Friday. Fleming, 64, is accused of misappropriating public funds and conspiracy, while Susan McGill, also 64, former assistant superintendent of administrative services, is charged with perjury and conspiracy. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In the Rev. Dollar's chapel last week, a man in jeans and a baseball jersey bowed his head and opened his wallet. In front of him, a woman in nursing scrubs leaned on her Bible to write a check. And when the congregation stood up in prayer, some -- speaking in tongues -- waved collection envelopes in the air. Creflo A. Dollar, senior pastor of World Changers Church International, preaches that God will reward the faithful with material riches.

CBS Radio jolted shock jock Howard Stern and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on Tuesday with a $218-million lawsuit that alleged Stern misused the company's airtime in a scheme to boost the payment he received when he moved to Sirius in January. CBS contends that while it employed Stern, the host spent more than a year hyping his upcoming switch to Sirius and, as a result, improperly enriched himself, "pocketing over $200 million for his personal benefit" by driving up Sirius' subscriber numbers.

A retired superintendent of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District has pleaded guilty to misappropriating public funds on personal expenses. Gerald Frederick Davis, 58, was given the maximum fine Monday of $10,000 and three years' probation, said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. In addition, he can no longer seek public employment and was ordered to repay the district more than $6,000.