A former local school board member and current Santa Clarita Human Relations Roundtable member is being investigated by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau, according to law enforcement officials.
Officials from both LASD and the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to The Signal on Friday that Paul De La Cerda — the former board president of the Saugus Union School District, who’s held a number of education-related positions throughout Southern California since stepping away from SUSD a few years back — was the subject of a criminal investigation.
Although law enforcement officials would not comment on the nature of the investigation, or what the pending charges may be, they did confirm that the investigation has been presented to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office for possible charges to be filed.
“Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau Detective Manskar will not be releasing any information regarding the case at this time,” said Deputy Alejandra Parra, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Information Bureau. “It is at the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit right now.”
When asked to comment on what De La Cerda was being accused of in the investigation, Parra said the Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau was declining to comment.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to respond to similar questions, but confirmed that the case against De La Cerda was “under review.”
“All I can tell you is that he was an employee, and he’s no longer an employee,” said William Boyer, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Community College District. “Everything is handled on a case-by-case basis,” he said, when asked about the community college district’s general policy toward investigations involving its employees and how they’re handled internally. He declined to go into further specifics on De La Cerda’s employment with East Los Angeles College.
De La Cerda did not respond to a request for a comment. Both ELAC and the ELAC Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. The city’s Human Relations Roundtable did not respond to a request for comment as of the publication of this article.
His LinkedIn page notes he’s an assistant superintendent/vice present of instruction at Cabrillo College in Aptos. It also reports he worked at East Los Angeles College as the “Dean, Office of the President/Instruction, Student Advancement, Workforce & Innovation/DEI programs” from 2013 to June 2021.
Prior to working at those two institutions, De La Cerda also served in 2008-2010 in a marketing position for The Signal.
