Disney trips, designer goods, a BMW, jewelry, real estate, and luxury tequila appeared in two separate Southern California education cases cited in a new national review of school spending abuse.
The cases involved Janis Bucknor, the former head of Community Preparatory Academy, and Jorge Armando Contreras, the former senior director of fiscal services at Magnolia School District in Orange County. The cases were not connected, but federal prosecutors said they involved more than $19.8 million in public education money.
Bucknor admitted using more than $3.1 million from the charter school organization for unauthorized personal expenses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Contreras was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in a separate case involving nearly $16.7 million from Magnolia School District, according to a separate federal release.
The cases were highlighted in a July 2026 school-spending report from Open the Books and the State Financial Officers Foundation, which reviewed confirmed and prosecuted cases involving federal education money across the country.
Two Separate California Cases Added Up to Nearly $20M
The report reviewed more than six years of U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General records and identified about 90 confirmed or prosecuted cases involving federal education tax dollars.
Community Preparatory Academy operated charter schools in Carson and South Los Angeles. Magnolia School District serves students in Anaheim and Stanton, including preschool through sixth grade.
The report listed the Community Preparatory Academy case at about $9,090 per student and the Magnolia School District case at about $3,553 per student. Those figures were based on about $3 million across 330 students in the charter school case and about $16.7 million across 4,700 students in the Magnolia case.
Disney Trips Appeared in the Charter School Case
Bucknor admitted in 2020 that she used $3,168,346 from Community Preparatory Academy over approximately 5½ years, from early 2014 through November 2019, for unauthorized purposes.
Federal prosecutors said the amount represented nearly one-third of all federal and state funding that went to Community Preparatory Academy during the period covered by the case. Bucknor admitted using the money for personal travel, restaurant meals, Amazon and Etsy purchases, and private school tuition for her children.
Prosecutors also said the spending included about $220,614 connected to Disney Cruise Line vacations, theme park admissions, and other Disney-related expenses. The school-spending report said Bucknor was later sentenced to 36 months of home detention and ordered to pay more than $2.86 million in restitution.
An Audit Found Personal Charges on School Accounts
The charter school case began to unravel in February 2018, when the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Charter School Division conducted a routine audit of Community Preparatory Academy.
Federal prosecutors said the audit found personal expenses paid from Community Preparatory Academy accounts. The payments included Disney, Louis Vuitton, Ticketmaster, Uber, Williams Sonoma, Amazon, Etsy, and other non-school expenses.
Prosecutors said Bucknor controlled Community Preparatory Academy and related entities, including Edcorp Services, Noctor, and Educational Excellence. She admitted using those entities to move school money into accounts she controlled and then use it for personal expenses.
The Magnolia School District Case Involved Nearly $16.7M
The second California case involved Contreras, who worked as senior director of fiscal services for Magnolia School District. Federal prosecutors said he managed the district’s fiscal operations and had access to school bank accounts.
Contreras pleaded guilty to embezzlement, theft, and intentional misapplication of funds from an organization receiving federal money. Prosecutors said he caused checks from Magnolia School District accounts to be deposited into his own bank account between August 2016 and July 2023.
The total in that case was approximately $16,694,942, according to federal prosecutors. Contreras was sentenced in July 2024 to 70 months in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution.
Prosecutors Said the Money Paid for Luxury Purchases
Federal prosecutors said Contreras used district money for a BMW, designer goods, jewelry, real estate, and other personal expenses. The school-spending report also cited luxury tequila and high-end purchases connected to the case.
The Magnolia case drew attention because of the size of the loss and the length of time involved. Prosecutors said the activity continued for years while Contreras held a senior finance position inside the district.
Magnolia School District serves thousands of students, and the report calculated the case at more than $3,500 per student based on the district’s enrollment figure.
The Warning Signs Were in the Paperwork
Both California cases involved people who had inside access to school accounts, payment records, or financial systems. In the charter school case, prosecutors described school-linked entities and accounts controlled by Bucknor. In the Magnolia case, prosecutors described a senior finance official with access to district checks and bank activity.
That is why cases like this can go on for years before the public hears about them. A payment may not look suspicious from the outside if it appears in a normal account, goes through a familiar vendor, or gets buried in a long list of reimbursements and routine expenses.
In both cases, the problems appeared in routine records before they became criminal cases: audits, reimbursement paperwork, vendor payments, checks, credit card charges, and account access. For parents, staff, and board members, those are the places to look when spending starts to look vague, late, or unusually controlled by one person.
Parents and Taxpayers Can Ask Better Questions
Parents and taxpayers do not need to be accountants to ask where school money is going. Board agendas, audit reports, charter renewal documents, district budgets, credit card policies, reimbursement records, and vendor contracts can all show whether spending is being reviewed or simply approved without much explanation.
Questions about travel, consultant payments, credit card charges, reimbursements, or unusual purchases should be put in writing to the school board, charter authorizer, district office, or county education office. Written questions create a record, and they make it harder for vague answers to disappear after a meeting.
Anyone who suspects education money is being misused should save meeting minutes, budget documents, screenshots, emails, payment references, vendor names, and audit findings before filing a report. Concerns involving federal education money can be reported to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General, while local concerns can also be raised with the district, charter authorizer, county office of education, or state education officials.
