Social worker charged in embezzlement case
By BLAIR CRADDOCK
BEE STAFF WRITER
Published: September 4, 2003, 06:47:55 AM PDT

Prosecutors have brought embezzlement charges against a longtime caseworker
in Stanislaus County's social services agency, accusing her of stealing
more than $150,000 in foster care and adoption program funds. Colette K.
DeLeon, 51, an eligibility worker in the Community Services Agency, stole
the state and federal money from Aug. 1, 2000, to July 31, 2003,
authorities said. DeLeon is due for arraignment Sept. 10 on three felony
counts: embezzlement by a public officer, embezzlement by an employee and
grand theft, Assistant District Attorney Carol Shipley said. She said two
people who did not work with De- Leon have been charged in the case: Michel
Marie Sirl, 26, accused of grand theft of more than $150,000; and Joseph
Michael Robinson, 25, accused of grand theft, which is theft involving an
amount greater than $400, and second-degree burglary. Shipley could not
provide details on Sirl's and Robinson's roles in the alleged embezzlement.
Attempts to contact DeLeon, Robinson and Sirl were unsuccessful Wednesday.
DeLeon, who was arrested this week, is free on $100,000 bail, Superior
Court records show. Robinson is free on $50,000 bail, and also is scheduled
to be arraigned Sept. 10. There is a warrant out for Sirl's arrest. Ken
Patterson, director of the Community Services Agency, said the embezzlement
appar-ently involved about $170,000. It was not taken from foster and
adoptive parents, he said. Instead, the money came from double-billing the
state and federal governments, he said. Patterson, who has headed the
Community Services Agency since October, said the alleged scheme took
"somebody who had really deep program knowledge (to) figure out how to
construct this." The alleged scam stemmed from cases in which children
changed foster homes or were adopted, Patterson said. Caseworkers filled
out forms, authorizing the new caregivers to receive an average of $1,468 a
month for each child in foster care, or $688 a month for an eligible
adopted child. In the DeLeon case, each of those authorizations turned into
two, he said. Real foster families got their payments, he said, so they did
not know that anything was wrong. Meanwhile, duplicate payments went to
"people who weren't really giving care to children." Patterson said DeLeon
went on sick leave, and her replacement discovered inconsistencies and
alerted a supervisor. DeLeon worked 15 years for the agency, and many of
her peers respected her competence, he said. No criminal convictions appear
for DeLeon in Stanislaus County Superior Court records. "This is a sad day
for us," Patterson said. He described the Community Services Agency's 850
employees as "a pretty honest and diligent bunch," and said he takes pride
in the department's low rate of fraud and error. Stanislaus County will
have to repay the lost funds to the state and federal governments, he said,
but that will not threaten the stability of the foster and adoptive care
programs, which cover about 1,460 children for about $19 million a year.
The agency will try to recoup the money from the defendants, Patterson
said. He said the agency is studying ways to improve its automated reports,
so errors can be caught more quickly, to prevent this from happening again.
Bee staff writer Blair Craddock can be reached at 578-2385 or
.

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