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OFFICER CHARGED IN PYRAMID SCHEME VINDICATED
Madeline Roberts, a twenty-three year veteran of the Los Angeles School Police Department became involved in an investment program known as TEAM Concepts. As with all of the other victims in the investment scheme, Officer Roberts contributed $200 as her initial investment. Officer Roberts who had never been trained or assigned to investigate frauds or pyramid schemes was sold on their elaborate financial investment program as distributed by the organizers which caused Roberts to believe it was a legitimate program. Two other School District Employees became interested in the program and asked Officer Roberts if they could join under her, which she agreed to do. These two School District employees each invested $200.00 but never saw their expected $1,600.00 return on their investment. For this, they blamed Officer Roberts, rather than the organizers of the investment scheme.
The two fellow employees filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department on May 5, 1999. The Financial Crimes Division investigated the matter and rightfully declined to file criminal charges against Officer Roberts. Since Madeline Roberts was a School Police Officer, L.A.P.D. provided a courtesy report to her employer the Los Angeles School Police Department. Rather than simply conduct an Administrative Investigation to determine if any administrative misconduct occurred, the School Police Department re-opened the criminal investigation of Officer Roberts. The investigation spread throughout the Department adding several more School District Police Officers to the investigation. Pretending they had a big scandal on their hands, School Police Detectives served searched warrants on several officers homes, work offices and vehicles in their wasted effort to do something that L.A.P.D. saw as a non-crime.
The School Police Department in an effort to prosecute one of its own, first attempted to get the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office to prosecute the matter. The L.A. D.A.'s office declined. The School Police Department finally convinced the Los Angeles City Attorney's office to file a misdemeanor criminal charge against Officer Madeline Roberts for her involvement. The L.A. City Attorney's office agreed to prosecute the matter based on representations made by the Internal Affairs Detectives, which were later found to be less than credible. The inevitable result was the criminal case was dismissed. What the School Police failed to accept and the City Attorney's office finally realized was that "near participation" by a participant in an endless chain scheme does not equate to a crime.
People v. Sanchez (1998) 62 Cal App. 4th 460. It is the organizers of the scheme who are criminally culpable, not the schemes victims, which in this case included Officer Roberts.
Losing the criminal case, the School District next administratively tried to terminate Officer Roberts from her position as a police officer. Officer Roberts was represented by Dieter C. Dammeier of Lackie & Dammeier LLP. The first step involved the
Skelly Hearing which resulted in the termination being reduced to a 20-day suspension. Thereafter, the matter was appealed to the Los Angeles Unified School District Personnel Commission. At the outset of the Personnel Commission hearing, evidence was presented that the School District failed to timely impose punitive action against Officer Roberts. Pursuant to Personnel Commission rules, an employee must receive the noticed discipline within 126 days of the employee first being advised of such discipline. In an attempt to circumvent this rule, the School District changed the dates and reissued the Notice of Discipline. After two days of hearing on the Motion to Dismiss, the hearing officer ordered the case dismissed due to the School District's violation of the Personnel Commission's own rules. While this was the technical reason for dismissing the case, the hearing officer no doubt took into account the weak position of the School District in this matter where it, after failing to criminally prosecute Officer Roberts, was simply trying to do what it could not do in the criminal case, administratively.
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