SAN DIEGO — A former San Diego-based travel agent who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by more than 150 parents for school trips that were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic was sentenced Monday to six months of home detention and six months of probation.
Marie Colette Martin, 53, was charged with spending funds she received on personal expenses rather than refunding parents after the trips were canceled.
According to the California Attorney General's Office, Martin solicited the travel funds from parents at nine schools in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The trips would have sent eighth-grade students from those schools to Washington D.C. and other East Coast locations in 2020, but the pandemic prevented the trips from happening.
When parents sought refunds, Martin declined, and the money instead went toward personal uses, including credit card purchases, rent and artwork, according to the Attorney General's Office.
"The seller of travel laws requires any money accepted in advance to go into a trust account and then that money cannot be taken out of the trust until it's used to pay for expenses," said Gina Darvas, Deputy District Attorney, San Diego County.
Prosecutors say she was unable to refund the parents because she had already been "experiencing cash flow problems and commingling client funds" and had used the parents' funds for personal expenses. She was able to fly under the radar until COVID happened.
"It's all fine as long as money is coming in but when Covid hit was like musical chairs and the music stopped and no more money is coming in, and you're stuck with empty pockets," said Darvas.
Martin, who was jointly prosecuted by the California Attorney General's Office and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, pleaded guilty to one felony count of failure to return funds as a seller of travel.
She may later petition to have the count reduced to a misdemeanor.
The crime bars her from registering with the Attorney General's Office as a seller of travel for seven years, according to prosecutors.
Martin had already paid around $256,000 in restitution as of Monday's sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors say some of that money will go to victims, while other victims have already been refunded through the Travel Consumer Restitution Corporation, which assists consumers who suffer losses for a variety of reasons, including failure of sellers to travel to provide services.