Edhat Staff
Source: Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office
Re: People v. Lynn Gay Hogan, Case No. 17CR09765
Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce E. Dudley announced today that on April 18, 2018, Lynn Gay Hogan, age 48, pled guilty to felony charges of theft of public funds, forgery, and conspiracy, all occurring between May 27, 2008 and July 25, 2017. Ms. Hogan also admitted an enhancement that alleged the theft exceeded $500,000. Ms. Hogan’s plea occurred in Department 1 of the Santa Barbara Superior Court, in front of the Honorable James E. Herman.
Ms. Hogan was employed by the County of Santa Barbara in the Public Works Department for approximately 28 years prior to her arrest in September, 2017.
Ms. Hogan will return to Court on June 6, 2018 for sentencing at which time it is anticipated that Ms. Hogan will be sentenced to 9 years, 8 months in State Prison, and be ordered to pay $2,051,470.96 in restitution to the County of Santa Barbara. Additionally, pursuant to California Government Code section 7522.72, with this conviction Ms. Hogan forfeits all her retirement benefits from the County of Santa Barbara earned or accrued from May 27, 2008 to July 25, 2017.
Charges were filed against Ms. Hogan in this case in September of 2017, after an investigation by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. Also charged along with Ms. Hogan were Michael Anzivino, Wendy Puchli, Michelle Lavin, Richard Kaplinski, Vincent Anzivino, Michael Elliott, Christina Huffman, and Leanna Harada. Today’s plea only involved Ms. Hogan, and a Preliminary Hearing has been set for all other defendants for June 27, 2018.
Because the cases are still pending for the remaining defendants, the District Attorney’s Office cannot comment on the underlying facts regarding Ms. Hogan’s plea at this time.
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September 25, 2017: Public Works Accountant Arrested for Embezzlement
Beautiful bunch of delicate flowers!
This is what happens when you don’t have a public institution like a newspaper to investigate municipal corruption and the local governments are too inept to police their own employees. Remember the City police employee that stole for years? How about all the settlements they pay for hostile work environments? Next time they cry poor, remember how much money they have wasted.
Hooray, a white collar criminal going to jail! It is great to see.. It is also hard to imagine the greed and entitlement she must have felt with her total comp exceeding $140K per year and still feeling the need to steal a half million from the people.
CivilEngineer wrote: “This is what happens when you don’t have a public institution like a newspaper to investigate municipal corruption and the local governments are too inept to police their own employees.”
WHAT happens? They get caught, go to jail, and have to pay back the money plus damages?? Sounds like a good outcome to me!!
because she was in charge of accounting, she also gave the funds to the other 3 women so cheerfully pictured above. so what does 4 women do with $2mil…………… well if your trying to live in santa barbara, actually not much
She should have kept her “dues” payments current.
Wow! Glad the DA is pursuing this as it sounds like a very large sum of our taxpayer funds were stolen. If the others are guilty as well, the scale of this is impressive in terms of number of people involved, money and years of abuse.
Looks like a fun bunch of ladies.
She received $146,000+ from the County in pay and benefits in 2016, according to TransparentCalifornia.com. And she will forfeit only 9 years of her retirement pay! Hopefully, the County will make every effort to collect on the restitution — what could she have done with more than $2 million over those 9 years and why didn’t someone notice?
Have to wonder why the County Auditor Controller’s office did not insure proper accounting controls and policies were in place in the Public Works Department. Hopefully, audits on ongoing now annually in all departments to insure that another criminal gang doesn’t end up pocketing tax payer dollars they will likely never repay even if convicted and imprisoned. The Auditor at the time of the crime, Bob Geis, has retired but his long time assistant Theo Fallati, has taken over the job. Hopefully Fallati will clean up any lingering messes in the County’s financial managment, as he should be well acquainted with all of it.
Where are the photos of the many male creeps mentioned in the article?? Apparently this was quite the group crime. Why only photos of the women?
It amazes me that she had the audacity to think she could get away with it!
Crime went on for 8 years. Probably doesn’t have any of the money left to pay back. If you think that’s a good outcome, maybe you should try to get a job with the County?
She will be out in 2 years, lose 9 years of her pension, pay nothing back, and marry some 80 year old Montecito millionaire who finally found a woman who shares his values.