CALIFORNIA—Federal prosecutors filed criminal theft and tax fraud charges against a former executive director of a charter school on Friday, July 17 for her involvement in embezzling more than $3.1 million in school operations funds. The defendant, 52 year-old Janis Bucknor, ran the for-profit Community Preparatory Academy (CPA) located at 7511 Raymond Ave in Los Angeles.

Bucknor is facing the following charges:

  • One count of theft
  • One count of embezzlement
  • One count of intentional misapplication of funds from an organization receiving federal funds
  • One count of tax evasion for the tax year 2016.

From early 2014 through November 2019, the defendant embezzled a total of $3,168,346 from CPA. The amount of stolen funds is nearly one-third of all federal and state funding that went to CPA during the time. In her plea agreement, Bucknor admitted using the stolen funds to fund her personal travel, restaurant outings, Amazon and Etsy purchases, as well as private school tuition for her children. The defendant admitted to spending approximately $220,614 on Disney cruise line vacations, theme park admissions, and other Disney-related expenses.

The scheme started to unravel in February 2018 when LAUSD-Charter School Division’s audit of CPA revealed the defendant used CPA accounts for personal expenses, including unauthorized payments to:

  • Disney
  • Louis Vuitton
  • Girl Scout donations
  • Ticketmaster
  • Uber
  • Baby Teeth Children’s Dentistry procedures
  • Williams Sonom
  • National American Miss pageants
  • Forest Lawn Mortuaries.

In relation to the tax evasion offense, the defendant agreed to plead guilty to her 2016 taxes. She admitted to her failure of paying the Internal Revenue Service $299,639 in taxes when she failed to report $1,322,254 in income for the tax years 2015 through 2018.

When she pleads guilty, Bucknor will face a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison. As part of her plea agreement, Bucknor agreed to forfeit her interest in three residential properties in South Los Angeles that were paid for with funds stolen from the charter school.

The case was investigated by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General, IRS Criminal Investigation, the United States Secret Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.