Newport-Mesa Superintendent Hubbard Scheduled to Appear in Court

Newport-Mesa Unified Superintendent Jefferey Hubbard was scheduled to be in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday morning for a pretrial hearing on allegations that he misused public money.

In January, Hubbard pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of misappropriation of public funds that stem from when he was superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District.

The charges against Hubbard were filed Dec. 9 and refer to incidents that are alleged to have occurred while he worked at Beverly Hills Unified between September 2005 and February 2006. According to documents from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, Hubbard  gave Karen Anne Christiansen, the district director of planning and facilities at the time, a $20,000 stipend and an increased car stipend without school board consent.

Christiansen faces the two felony misappropriation of funds charges as well as six felony counts of conflict of interest from incidents alleged to have occurred between 2006 and 2008, according to the district attorney's office.

Christiansen was hired by Beverly Hills Unified in 2004 at an annual salary of $113,000 but secretly negotiated a contract to be an independent contractor while performing the same duties, according to prosecutors.  She was paid a total of $5.2 million by the school district between 2006 and 2009, officials said.

Christiansen also is accused of negotiating contracts with an energy firm to do work for the district while simultaneously negotiating contracts between her company, Strategic Concepts LLC, and the energy firm, according to the district attorney's office.