Cindy Greatrex will stand trial on March 12 on a grand theft charge that alleges she took $67,935 from the La Jolla Park & Recreation Inc. Board while she was its president, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Greatrex, 51, appeared Wednesday before San Diego Superior Court Judge Michael Smyth and she waived her right to have a speedy trial.
She also pleaded not guilty again as part of a standard procedure that defendants who were ordered to stand trial in a preliminary hearing must be arraigned a second time to reflect they have been held to answer on the charge.
Greatrex also showed up in court with a new attorney, John Kirby, who was substituted in over her former lawyer, Paul Neuharth, Jr., at her preliminary hearing.
“I wish her well. I really like her,” said Neuharth to a reporter, as he walked around in the courthouse hallway on Wednesday.
When asked why he no longer represented Greatrex, Neuharth said, “I can’t do things as inexpensively for a trial,” in reference to the work he did on the preliminary hearing.
Greatrex testified for five hours over two days in her preliminary hearing that ended Nov. 30. She said the checks she wrote to herself as well as some cash advances were to reimburse her for the grant writing services, insurance costs, and other expenses such as payments to vendors that she had paid with her own funds.
One of the issues at trial will be whether a Chicago company which received $40,000 in grant writing services actually exists. At the earlier hearing, Deputy District Attorney Chandelle Konstanzer presented testimony that the Chicago address is only a mail drop box and they could not find the man who wrote the grants.
Greatrex testified that a document shown to her in court that listed her phone number with this Chicago company’s information was supplied by “my accuser,” Mary Munk, who is now the Board president.
Greatrex said in an e-mail that the Chicago company had more than one employee and a different person signed a contract to do grant writing services.
Konstanzer said it was “ridiculous” that Greatrex would spend over $40,000 of her own money for grant writing services. She produced a witness who said the Board paid for the sole insurance policy the recreation center had, but Greatrex said she had paid a separate insurance policy debt.
The trial will be held in the new downtown courthouse which is set to open in January. A readiness conference was set for Jan. 30 to see if the case can be settled.
Greatrex remains free on $70,000 bond.
