The former finance director for the La Jolla Music Society was sentenced on Aug. 4 to 2 1\/2 years in federal prison for embezzling $650,000 from the nonprofit organization over 10 years \u2013 even while earning $120,000 annually in salary.<\/p>\n
Mission Valley resident Christopher Michael Benavides, 52, was allowed to remain free on a $20,000 bond and will surrender on Sept. 19 to begin his 30-month sentence.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Bencivengo exceeded the recommended two-year sentence by a prosecutor and imposed 30 months, saying this type of embezzlement is “way more egregious when a nonprofit is involved.”<\/p>\n
Bencivengo ordered Benavides to pay restitution of $650,000 to the music society. Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Mark Conover said he doubted Benavides was remorseful because he has not paid anything towards restitution.<\/p>\n
Todd Schultz, the president and CEO of the La Jolla Music Society, appeared at the sentencing and also filed a four-page letter with the judge that stated Benavides was earning $120,000 annually while he was finance director.<\/p>\n
The letter stated that Benavides oversaw the budgeting process and “he regularly claimed that many staff salary increases were not possible due to budgetary constraints.” He added: “During this same time period, Benavides was stealing for himself an average of about $65,000 per year.”<\/p>\n
Schultz’ letter said they discovered Benavides paid his personal mortgage payments using the music society funds, and Benavides initially said it was done by accident. But they later learned it was a massive theft in which funds were used to pay for his credit cards and other personal expenses.<\/p>\n
They fired him in March 2021 after 15 years as their finance director. Executives said they suspect the theft may be larger but their records don’t go back past 2011.<\/p>\n
Also speaking in court was board chairman Steve Baum, who also investigated the thefts.<\/p>\n
In court, Benavides told Bencivengo he regretted his actions and lost the trust of friends.<\/p>\n
“Mr. Benavides exploited his position of trust with the La Jolla Music Society by stealing month after month for over a decade,” said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman.<\/p>\n
“His greed and deception have had a lasting impact on this nonprofit,” added Grossman.<\/p>\n
“La Jolla Music Society trusted their director of finance to safeguard the nonprofit’s funds, but Benavides had a different plan,” said Stacey Moy, special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office.<\/p>\n
“Instead, the defendant strategically calculated year over year to systematically steal from his employer, selfishly lining his own pockets,” said Moy.<\/p>\n
The La Jolla Music Society provides arts and education programming for thousands of San Diegans each year including a year-round music-training program in Barrio Logan for middle and high school students.<\/p>\n
They provide learning opportunities for young musicians, seminars, lectures, and student performances. It relies heavily on donors, foundations and government funding to cover its expenses.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former finance director for the La Jolla Music Society was sentenced on Aug. 4 to 2 1\/2 years in federal prison for embezzling $650,000 from the nonprofit organization over 10 years \u2013 even while earning $120,000 annually in salary. Mission Valley resident Christopher Michael Benavides, 52, was allowed to remain free on a $20,000 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1266,"featured_media":304289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11557","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"The former finance director for the La Jolla Music Society was sentenced on Aug. 4 to 2 1\/2 years in federal prison for embezzling $650,000 from the nonprofit organization over 10 years \u2013 even while earning $120,000 annually in salary.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11557,11551],"tags":[12653,13828,12747],"class_list":["post-314133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mission-valley-news","category-news","tag-crime","tag-la-jolla-music-society","tag-mission-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}