Former Calif. council member admits to stealing over $500K, using it to gamble

A former city council member in Northern California has been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison after admitting to embezzling over half a million dollars from her employer to support her “unearned” lifestyle, prosecutors announced last week. 

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According to the Northern District of California U.S. Attorney’s Office, 59-year-old former business manager and Humboldt County resident Christina Ann Mobley stole over $500,000 from her employer, Beacom Construction. Described in court documents as a valuable employee since the 1990s, Mobley took over financial responsibilities at the company when the previous bookkeeper retired around 2020; Mobley was managing anything from government contracts to employee health benefits. But from 2022 to about 2024, she began siphoning the money to her personal accounts, court documents say. 

In addition to using company funds to pay for cash advances at casinos and for airfare and hotels, the release says Mobley also issued checks to herself to pay off a car loan while inflating “her vacation time, work hours, and bonuses in the company’s payroll system, resulting in unearned and excessive payments.” Mobley, previously a city council member in Fortuna, resigned amid the federal investigation into the embezzlement scandal, the Lost Coast Outpost reported.   

In 2025, Mobley pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud. In addition to receiving a 20-month prison sentence, Mobley has been ordered to pay restitution of $586,000 and receive three years of supervised release.

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U.S. Attorney’s Office representatives did not respond to SFGATE’s request for more information by the time of publication.