Ex-Employee Guilty of Thefts From 9/11 Fund
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A former Los Angeles Times employee was sentenced Tuesday to 32 months in prison after he pleaded no contest to charges that he stole more than $67,000 from the newspaper’s Sept. 11 Disaster Relief Fund.
Michael Childress, 36, a temporary employee hired to process mail and donations to the fund, was ordered to pay restitution of $31,000 to the American Express Co., $22,000 to Bank Card Center and $14,000 to Card Service International.
Los Angeles County prosecutors said the thefts were discovered after several donors complained about grammatical and spelling errors in the thank-you notes that they received from The Times. The letters reportedly were written by Childress.
The relief effort by the McCormick Tribune Foundation collected $2.5 million.
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