Man Charged in Student Funds Theft

Los Angeles school police arrested a former adult school financial manager Friday in connection with the theft of more than $150,000 in student funds, authorities said.

Rodulfo Boquiren, 47, of Los Angeles was taken into custody at his brother’s house, also in Los Angeles, after an eight-month investigation, said Det. Jerry Timms of the Los Angeles Unified School District Police.

Timms said Boquiren, financial manager of the Banning-Carson Adult School in Wilmington from May 1987 to November 1996, resigned his post at the inception of the investigation.

School officials detected the disappearance of the funds when an employee reported that a payroll check was returned for insufficient funds, Timms said. It was later discovered that several checks bounced and several vendors were not paid for merchandise, Timms said.

Boquiren, who could not be reached for comment, was initially arrested in November after making a partial confession, and was released pending an audit, Timms said.

That audit, concluded in April, uncovered in excess of $150,000 missing from a fund raised by students from sales of books and student identification cards, Timms said.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged Boquiren with one count of misappropriating funds and three counts of tax evasion for failing to report the proceeds of his thefts as income, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard A. Rosenthal.

Boquiren is being held in lieu of $150,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to eight years in state prison and receive a $70,000 fine.