Los Angeles, California - Margo Wainwright
Harris pled guilty to misrepresenting to the Labor Department that more
than $80,000 owed to the money purchase retirement plan of the Frederick
Douglass Child Development Center Inc. in Los Angeles had been repaid. Her
plea came after the first week of a criminal trial in federal district
court following an indictment that was issued in March 2005.
Harris was on the board of directors of the Frederick
Douglass Child Development Center, which provided Head Start programs and
preschool services to children in Los Angeles. During a Department of
Labor civil investigation in March 2000, Harris deposited $80,936 into the
center’s retirement plan account to prove that these assets, which had
been improperly withdrawn from the plan’s account in 1999, had been
restored. Two days later, after generating a receipt of the deposit,
Harris withdrew $80,000 from this same account and transferred it to the
account of Youth Intervention Program, a non-profit organization for which
Harris was executive director. Several days later she directed a
subordinate to present the March 2000 deposit receipt to the Department of
Labor to prove that the money had been restored.
Under the plea agreement, Harris must restore the more
than $80,000 owed to the plan and faces a maximum sentence of five years
in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of at least $250,000
and a special assessment. Harris is to be sentenced on November 7, 2005.
“This defendant lied to the Labor Department about
restoring retirement assets to the Frederick Douglass retirement plan,”
said Billy Beaver, director of Los Angeles regional office of the Employee
Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). “The government’s legal
action in this case sends a clear message that we are committed to
protecting the benefit promises made to workers.”
The investigation was conducted by EBSA’s Los Angeles
regional office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, with
assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The guilty plea was
entered in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in
Los Angeles.
(U.S. v. Harris)
Criminal No. CR 05-233-PA |