Saratoga man charged in case involving public school money

Sept. 25--Though a necessary part of life, writing checks is not a painless activity. That is, unless you're writing them out to yourself at the expense of someone else's money. That's the crime the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office is accusing a Saratoga man of committing over the course of three years.

Earlier this month, prosecutors charged the man they've identified as Jinfa "Jim" Luyau, 59, with two counts of felony conflict of interest for approving contracts and checks when he served as an assistant superintendent of business services for the Santa Clara Unified School District from 2007 through 2010. What he did with that money, prosecutors do not know, said deputy district attorney Judy Lee, but it was money that in all likelihood would have been gone into the district's general fund.

Luyau is alleged to have negotiated and signed off on two contracts intended to pay the district for bookkeeping services provided to the South Bay Areas Schools Insurance Authority. Instead, those checks were being made out to himself and other staff members. SBASIA, a consortium of districts, was unaware of Luyau's payments to himself, according to Lee.

Luyau is being accused of violating a conflict of interest law which makes it illegal for a government official to profit financially from any government contract he or she negotiates in their official capacity.

"A public employee is not allowed to financially and personally benefit from an official contract that he or she makes, and in this case he profited $42,000 from a contract that he entered into on behalf of the Santa Clara Unified School District," Lee said.

At this time, prosecutors do not plan to file criminal charges against the other staff members that Luyau approved checks for, according to Lee. Luyau's alleged crimes were uncovered after a 2011 Office of Education audit that uncovered anomalies. Those findings were reported to the DA's office in 2012, the same year that Luyau retired.

Luyau turned himself in at the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office on Sept. 2, was arraigned 10 days later on the two charges and is now awaiting his next hearing on Oct. 15. He remains out of custody on $20,000 bail and is being represented by Kurt Seibert.

If convicted, Luyau faces a maximum of three years and eight months in jail.

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