Former Newport-Mesa Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Hubbard, who was fired after being convicted of misappropriation of public funds while Superintendent of the Beverly Hills School District, learned his fate earlier this week. Saying that he deserved “a taste of jail,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus sentenced Hubbard to 60 days in jail, followed by three years probation, fined him $6,000, ordered him to pay $23,500 in restitution and forbade him from ever again holding a position of public trust.
“I want him to have a taste of jail. I want him to understand this was a serious thing that happened here,” Marcus told the courtroom. “I think he did this to help (the woman) because he liked her, he loved her, he had a yearning for this woman. Maybe he was hypnotized.”
Hubbard was convicted on Monday, January 23rd on 2 counts of misappropriation of funds in relation to giving one of his subordinates $20,000 in bonuses and a car allowance increase without board approval when he was with the Beverly Hills School Board. He was fired the next day by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board due to his conviction. Throughout his trial, the Board majority kept him on 5 months paid administrative leave.
At the time of his conviction we wrote about the response from the union representing district educators. In a press release following his conviction the Newport Federation of Teachers said:
As educators, we are saddened by the impact that this case has had on the reputation of our district and the resources it has drained from our classrooms.
Though the felony charges stemmed from employment outside of Newport Mesa Unified School District, the email messages exchanged between Jeffrey Hubbard and Karen Christiansen, introduced as evidence in the case, revealed behavior unbecoming of a superintendent of a school district. Furthermore, the majority of our School Board members voted to grant Jeffrey Hubbard five months of paid leave to prepare for his defense – this money would have better served the public had it been spent in our classrooms.
They called upon the board “to have an open and transparent public process, with input from parents, teachers, and other community members in our search for a new superintendent. We want a School Board that is responsive and responsible to the community.”