Gadflies, watchdogs and whistle-blowers basked in validation and vindication Monday when a Sacramento jury closed the book on the library corruption scandal with a clean sweep of convictions.

"You swear people in and all of a sudden a lot of the truth comes out," said Don Prange, foreman of the Sacramento County Grand Jury, which forced the case that has placed three defendants on the precipice of prison. "That's how we got to where we're at, and I'm really pleased."

A Sacramento Superior Court criminal jury finished the work begun more than four years ago by a library whistle-blower, The Sacramento Bee, a citizen activist and Prange's grand jury.

The culmination came in convictions returned against the library's former security chief, James Mayle, and his wife, Janie Rankins-Mayle. They ran a billing operation good for a $780,000 take by those two defendants and another convicted in-house collaborator, former library facilities director Dennis Nilsson. Nilsson was found guilty Dec. 9 on 16 counts.

"This is a classic case of public corruption," Deputy District Attorney Mike Blazina said in a prepared statement. "These defendants padded maintenance billings so they could misappropriate taxpayer funds for their own financial benefits."

Judge Allen H. Sumner ordered Nilsson handcuffed and remanded when the jury came back against the 65-year-old ex-library official with assorted counts of grand theft, embezzlement, conflict of interest and bribery. On Monday, he allowed James Mayle, 66, and his 63-year-old wife to remain free on $45,000 bail.

All three are scheduled for a Jan. 20 sentencing. Nilsson is looking at 21 years and eight months in prison, according to the Sacramento District Attorney's Office. James Mayle's worst-case scenario is 12 years, his wife's 11 years and four months.

Both Mayles declined to comment Monday. Defense attorneys Stan Kubochi for James Mayle and Robert J. Saria for Janie Rankins-Mayle both said they were disappointed with the verdicts.

The husband and wife are both former police officers. Mayle was chief of the old Grant Union High School District police. Rankins-Mayle served as a captain for the Port Authority police force.

Kubochi will argue for probation for his client.

"Mr. Mayle has had a career in law enforcement," Kubochi said. "He was not the instigator of this scheme, of this plot, of this fraud, and they are all factors under the rules of court that pertain to sentencing and apply to this situation."

Saria said he thought Nilsson "manipulated" his client's "inexperience." It was Nilsson, Saria said, who "created this whole thing." Saria said he was willing to talk to the DA's office about a deal for his client before trial in exchange for her testimony against Nilsson. The prosecutors were not interested.

"They wanted to come in and get their pound of flesh," Saria said.

According to evidence at trial, Mayle identified maintenance projects throughout the library system and Nilsson arranged with Rankins-Mayle to hire contractors willing to stay mum while the three defendants worked out an overpayment scheme.

In the end, their operation produced 1,400 invoices in which contractors had asked for $562,000 but for which the city and the Sacramento Library Authority paid $1.34 million. The threesome split the $780,000 in kickbacks generated from April 2004 to July 2007, according to the DA's Office.

A whistle-blower inside the library authority became suspicious of the billing operation. Diane Boerman, a senior accounts payable technician, testified she took her suspicions in 2005 to former library director Anne Marie Gold, who ignored her.

In May 2007, The Bee filed a state Public Records Act request for the invoices. The demand prompted an internal audit, which generated stories in The Bee, followed by investigations launched by the District Attorney's Office and the grand jury – all of which circled back to Boerman.

"She called over and said, "Look, I've got a problem. I'd like to talk to the grand jury,' " Prange said Monday. "She told us what was happening, and we started an almost three- or four-month investigation."

A library spokesman said it would have no comment on Monday's verdicts.

Boerman also declined to comment, but the gadfly who made life miserable for Gold and many of the library's board members said the verdict vindicated them both.

Judith Anshin, president of the Friends of the Belle Cooledge Library and a regular at board meetings for five years, thinks a more vigilant administration would have deterred anybody from thinking about a kickback scheme.

The convictions validated her efforts as a pain in the library administration's neck, Anshin said.

"I worked very hard for five years to see a change of leadership at the top – and it happened, and it pleases."

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Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141. Follow him on Twitter @andyfurillo.

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