LYNWOOD : Ex-Businessman Denies Bilking City of $694,000
A former businessman who allegedly bilked the city of Lynwood out of hundreds of thousands of dollars pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of grand theft, money laundering and presenting false vouchers to the city.
Richard Lincoln Calhoun, 57, who was arrested Tuesday, appeared in Los Angeles Municipal Court wearing prison-issue coveralls. Bail was set at $700,000.
He is the former president of the now-defunct Lynwood Manufacturing Co., which was given $694,800 in city funds in 1991 to purchase equipment for a machine shop. The operation was to have been an anchor business of the Entrepreneur Development Academy of California, a city-run program to provide job training and clerical support to fledgling business owners.
The shop’s profits were to have been used to help make the academy self-supporting, but Calhoun never opened the shop, officials said.
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for March 7.
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