State senator faces criminal charge

Monday, July 15, 2002 | 10:54 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A criminal complaint has charged that state Sen. Maurice Washington failed to provide industrial insurance coverage for workers at a charter school in Sparks -- the second time he has been charged with such an offense.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Gregory Zunino signed the misdemeanor complaint, submitted to the Justice Court in Sparks on Friday.

Attached to the complaint was an affidavit that alleged that Washington, an ordained minister, may have engaged in a questionable practice of shuffling $150,000 from the charter school to his church, the Center of Hope Christian Fellowship Inc. No allegation of criminal conduct was made in that affidavit.

Washington, a two-term Republican who is locked in a primary election battle with Wanda Wright, expressed surprise when informed about the allegation. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. "All I have been doing is campaigning, going door to door."

The misdemeanor charges accuse Washington of failing to provide insurance coverage for the employees from Feb. 8 until March 22 at the Nevada Leadership Academy, where he was president.

Charles Tolotti, an investigator for the workers compensation fraud unit in the attorney general's office, said in an affidavit that Washington maintained he had only minimal involvement with the operation of the school and did not get involved in the daily business after he took over as president in January or February.

Washington suggested that Alicia Stewart, an administrative assistant at the charter school, was to blame for the lapse in coverage, Tolotti's affidavit said. Washington also alleged that she did not pay the school's bills in a timely fashion.

Stewart told investigators Washington "was intimately involved" in the school operation and that in late January or early February, Washington directed her to stop paying bills. She said he did not give her an explanation but said he was working on something else.

In early February Washington hired Rita Alderete as a bookkeeper for the school, the court documents say. After starting work, she told investigators that she reviewed the books and found the school was struggling to meet its financial obligations.

She said she told Washington that the industrial insurance bill needed to be paid. He told her those school bills could not be paid until a loan was secured to purchase the church. Later Alderete said Washington told her that he needed to move $150,000 from the school into the account of his church, court documents say.

Alderete said Washington told her he needed the money to secure a loan to buy the church property that the school currently occupies. She said she warned Washington against transferring the funds, telling him it would amount to fraud, according to the affidavit.

Alderete said Washington replied it was not as though he would be taking the money and that he would put it right back, the court documents say.

Alderete again informed Washington there was no industrial insurance coverage for employees in the middle of February this year. Washington asked her to contact the insurance company to ask for more time to pay the bill and to backdate the policy, the documents say.

Alderete said she injured her neck, back and shoulders when she fell from a chair. When she told Washington about it, he said there were already two uninsured injuries at the school and another would not look good for the school. She told investigators she felt guilty and did not file an industrial insurance claim.

Later she confronted Washington about the lack of insurance, the court documents say. She told investigators Toglotti and Joan DuPuis that Washington shrugged off the issue, assuring her things would be fine once the loan went through.

Asked Friday whether he had told employees at the charter school not to pay the bills for workers compensation coverage, Washington said, "I never did that." He said he "never moved money" from the charter school to his church in order to get a loan.

"I don't know anything about this," he said.

Washington resigned as president of the charter school on May 31. The operation of the charter school has been roundly criticized in an audit by the state Department of Education.