Former campaign treasurer gets year in jail for embezzlement
A onetime volunteer campaign treasurer for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (RCosta Mesa) who embezzled more than $250,000 from his former employer and the congressman’s reelection committee was sentenced Tuesday to a year in county jail and five years’ probation.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald decided during a sentencing hearing to spare Jack Wu, who had no previous criminal record, from prison time, but Wu was ordered to pay back the money.
As part of a deal with prosecutors, Wu, 46, pleaded guilty in January to three felony counts of grand theft by embezzlement, 21 felony counts of forgery with sentencing enhancements for theft exceeding $100,000, aggravated white-collar crime over $100,000 and property loss over $200,000, according to Superior Court records.
Fitzgerald said Wu could apply to serve his sentence in home confinement.
Wu could not be reached for comment, but his attorney, Paul Meyer, issued an emailed statement that said: “We appreciate the careful analysis and extraordinary circumstances that made probation the right call.
“Mr. Wu began restitution before the charges were filed and has fully accepted responsibility. He is deeply grateful for the opportunity to make amends.”
In 2004, Wu began working as an unpaid treasurer for the reelection committee. His duties included paying taxes owed by the committee, filing Federal Election Commission reports, acting as the custodian of records and running the committee’s bank accounts.
Meyer said Wu took over from a professional firm that billed the committee an average of $2,400 a month in an election year and $500 a month plus expenses in nonelection years. Had Wu been paid the same rate as the firm, he would have received more than $188,000, Meyer said.
Prosecutors said Wu stole from the campaign partly to help repay a former employer that had fired him amid allegations of stealing money.
From 2008 to 2013, Wu was a controller for Russell Fischer Inc., where he handled accounts receivable, accounts payable and some payroll duties, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Wu was paid a $70,000 salary until March 2012, when he became an independent contractor for the company while running his own accounting business, prosecutors said.
At that point, Wu started receiving $2,000 every two weeks for his work at Russell Fischer but also kept taking his original salary, prosecutors said. In all, authorities said, Wu collected more than $71,000 in unauthorized pay from June 2012 to September 2013.
According to prosecutors, Wu also issued an extra $12,000 in unauthorized payments to his company from Russell Fischer in 2013.
Russell Fischer fired Wu in September 2013 after discovering the unauthorized outlays. Wu agreed to and made restitution payments to Russell Fischer in late 2013 and 2014.
According to authorities, Wu tried to repay at least some of the amount he owed with money from Rohrabacher’s campaign fund.