Cynthia Aguirre, a former member of the La Habra City School District Board of Education, has plead guilty to four felonies, the OC Independent has learned.
Aguirre resigned from the school board in spring of 2023.
OC Independent originally reported the conviction stemmed from a very large expense reimbursement Aguirre requested for her attending a three-day Latino School Boards Association’s “Unity and Equity” conference in Monterey from August 25 to August 28, 2022. Aguirre submitted an expense report in the amount of $5,143.
According to our sources, Aguirre doctored receipts in order to obtain reimbursement that was far larger than the actual cost of attending the conference.
The request was on the consent calendar of the Board’s September 8, 2022 meeting, but was pulled by Susan Pritchard, then a trustee. A discussion apparently ensued in which the other trustees took exception to Pritchard’s concerns about the huge reimbursement for Aguirre. The Board vote 4-1 to approve the $5,143 for Aguirre. Only Pritchard voted against it.
Further investigation indicates a pattern of fraud that goes back further.
According to OCCourts.org, Aguirre was originally charged with 11 felonies. Aguirre pled guilty to four of them on March 7, 2025. The remainder were dismissed.
Aguirre was sentenced to two years of probation, 160 hours of community service and ordered to pay restitution of the funds she stole from the district.
OC Independent reached out to the OC District Attorney’s Office and was told a press release was being prepared.
Aguirre, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2018. She didn’t make it past the primary.
However, she did get fined $5,000 by the California Fair Political Practices Commission because she “failed to timely file four semiannual campaign statements, in violation of Government Code Section 84200 (2 counts), and failed to timely file two pre-election campaign statements, in violation of Government Code Sections 84200.5, subdivision (a), and 84200.8 (1 count).”
Aguirre works for the County of Orange as a budget analyst and is a former North Orange County Vice Chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County (until 2022).
