Kings County DA’s office employee spends $20K of public money on herself
Deputies say the District Attorney was told by an employee that Patino had taken a generator purchased with taxpayer money to her home and had been using it for personal camping trips in her travel trailer with her family.
Patino initially denied having possession of the generator, but when confronted according to deputies she admitted to having it and stated, “yes, I forgot, and the only reason it was there was to run fuel through it.”
Officials say Patino turned the generator over to District Attorney employees and it was determined that the generator had 74 hours of use on the meter. Detectives say they concluded the 74 hours of use was much more than merely running fuel through it and that it had, in fact, never been used at work or for work-related events.
Detectives say Patino also used her county-issued credit card at Costco, using her personal Costco membership, and coded the generator purchase to grant funds intended for a mobile crisis trailer.
Additionally, detectives say they discovered Julia Patino had made multiple other county credit card charges from Costco and Amazon, totaling $19,958.94, in addition to the generator.
