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Saturday May 3, 2008
Bell Gardens, Huntington Park and State Senator
Ron Calderon:
D.A. Indicts Mario Beltran
for Embezzling Campaign
Funds
Editor's note: Mario Beltran is a Bell Gardens councilman.
Beltran is also a staffer for State Senator Ron Calderon
who represents Huntington Park, Maywood, Bell, Cudahy
and Bell Gardens. Mario Beltran was Huntington Park John
Noguez's campaign manager during Noguez's reelection
campaign in 2007.



Press release:
Sandy Gibbons, L.A. County District Attorney's office
May 2, 2008

LOS ANGELES – An indictment alleging that Bell Gardens
City Councilman Mario Beltran embezzled campaign funds to
pay his legal defense in a successful criminal prosecution of
him last year was unsealed today when the defendant was
arraigned in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Deputy District Attorney Max Huntsman of the Public Integrity
Division (PID) said the 13-count criminal indictment was
returned secretly by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury on
Monday. It remained under seal until the 31-year-old public
official was arraigned and pleaded not guilty before Los
Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven R. Van Sicklen.

Although $125,000 bail was requested in the indictment, the
judge set bond at $50,000 and gave Beltran a week to post it.
Huntsman urged bond be set, noting some of the alleged
crimes occurred while the councilman was on probation on
last year’s conviction for filing a false police report. A jury in
Downey convicted Beltran of the single misdemeanor count
in March of last year. Three months later, he was placed on
36 months probation.

The current indictment comes after a hearing in which
political and business leaders – alleged victims – testified
before the grand jury. The eight felony charges include two
counts of embezzlement of campaign funds, five counts of
theft by false pretenses and one count of perjury. The five
misdemeanor charges are violations of the Political Reform
Act, including failure to deposit cash contributions and failure
to report contributions and expenditures.

Huntsman said one embezzlement and the five theft charges
involve Beltran alleging telling contributors that he was using
the money he was raising for his re-election. Instead, it was
alleged that the money was used pay for his legal defense.

The other embezzlement count and the perjury count
allegedly involve using campaign funds to pay for a cell
phone under another person’s name and failing to report it.

If convicted of the felony counts, the defendant faces possible
maximum prison sentence of seven years and four months.