Sacramento-area school official investigated for fraud. Was someone else to blame?

On June 3, Chris Evans, the superintendent of Natomas Unified School District, had a one-on-one check-in with Ericka Harden. It was a routine talk with the recently elected school board member, though the backdrop for it was anything but.

The week before, trustees had stripped Harden of her board leadership position. The California Department of Consumer Affairs was escalating an investigation into invoices for Harden’s speech therapy work. Harden has long held a valid speech-language pathology assistant license, according to state records.

At issue was whether Harden received district money for work she never performed — accusations that involve an unusual financial arrangement with one parent whom Harden has long known.

In an interview with The Sacramento Bee hours before that vote in May, Harden made a revelation that surprised everyone, including Evans: Harden said someone “made up” invoices in her name and she was “caught in the crossfire.”

So in their meeting, Evans wanted to know who Harden thought was to blame.

“At first she was hesitant to tell me,” Evans said in an interview with The Bee.

Then he asked her directly if the person at the center of the scandal was Sachiko Konatsu, the parent at the center of the district’s unusual financial arrangement.

“It was a very quiet and simple yes,” Evans said.

Konatsu’s tensions with the district date back years. Her personal and professional connections with Harden are well known, and Konatsu was once banned from campus for reportedly threatening staff.

Under the arrangement she struck with the district in October 2015, Konatsu would pay for speech therapy services for her children. Invoices, including those from “Speech by Ericka,” would then be sent to the district for payment. Natomas Unified would then reimburse Konatsu.

The allegation that Konatsu might have sent invoices to the Natomas Unified School District under Harden’s name for work that was never performed complicates an already muddled situation that has long embroiled the district.

More than four years ago, the Department of Consumer Affairs began reviewing invoices that showed “Speech by Ericka” claimed some $16,000 from dozens of speech services.

Meanwhile, Harden narrowly won her election last fall and the issue appeared to have been dropped.

But in May, the case spilled into the public after the Department of Consumer Affairs demanded additional records and potential witnesses from the district, threatening to overshadow Harden’s election victory and spoil her plans to bring a progressive platform to the board as one of the region’s few Black women in office.

The personal stakes are also high. Konatsu is a longtime friend of Harden’s. The two have led parent-teacher and community organizations, Konatsu campaigned with Harden last fall.

It’s what made Harden’s admission to the superintendent all the more striking.

“Now we’ve reached the point where a trustee has said, ‘I’m the victim of all this,’ ” Evans said.

Konatsu declined an interview with The Bee. It’s unclear if Harden has told state investigators that Konatsu might be to blame.

The scandal highlights the risks district officials took in a fraught arrangement involving an allegedly hostile parent that paved the way for an investigation that is ongoing. And now the district officials are deferring to the Department of Consumer Affairs for what happens next.

In a brief phone call on June 30, Harden told a reporter to call back later. She did not respond to multiple voicemails or text messages later in the day. She previously said she has never done anything illegal involving the district or with her speech services, that she is cooperating with investigators. She would not say who she believed made the invoices in her name.

“The bigger question for us is, if someone did this to you, why have you stayed so close with them all the way up through election by having them walk with you, having them support you publicly in your campaign if they were victimizing you?” Evans said.

A triangle of transactions

Konatsu for years sparred with district staff and was displeased with how her children were taught. She grew hostile toward employees, and in 2014 was accused of threatening teachers and district staff.

A psychiatrist who has worked for California’s prison system, Konatsu was accused of using profanity and making threats when speaking with teachers and school staff at American Lakes Elementary School, Natomas Middle School and the district office at the time. The district warned her they would take legal action to ban her from campuses.

Konatsu was also involved in a separate dispute with the district, records show. District officials in 2015 reached a settlement with Konatsu and agreed to pay her for some education expenses she incurred for her children. Those included equipment and educational services such as speech therapy. Though it’s not unheard of across the country, Evans said it was the only time he’d encountered such an arrangement.

“Something that we thought we’d try and we hoped would have the parent be more pleased with what her student was getting, and frankly, to protect, at minimum, the emotional wellness and safety of a number of our staff members,” Evans said.

There were safeguards, spending limits and a paper trail, Evans said. Natomas staffers would even accompany Konatsu to Best Buy to purchase equipment, like a computer, so that they could ensure taxpayer money was being used as intended.

But district staff later learned that Konatsu would return the equipment for something cheaper, Evans said. They grew worried someone was “pocketing the extra cash.”

After settlement, speech invoices raise questions

Part of the agreement also included reimbursement for speech therapy services. Essentially, invoices filed to the district would be paid to the parent — Konatsu — who would, in turn, be expected to reimburse “Speech by Ericka,” services allegedly provided by Harden who she knew at the time and has remained close to ever since.

Harden has long held a valid speech-language pathology assistant license, according to state records. Through 2016, the district received several invoices, ostensibly for Harden’s speech services. The invoices came from three email addresses associated with Harden.

All told, the district paid upward of $16,000 to Konatsu for the speech invoices, Evans said.

In January 2017, a district official appeared to become wary of some of the documentation that was coming in. Invoices were omitting her registration number. “Do not process anymore (sic) receipts from this vendor without licensure documentation,” one person wrote, according to records The Bee reviewed in response to a Public Record Act request.

“That’s about the time that the speech invoices stopped,” Evans said.

District officials have since learned that, on at least one day of the invoiced services, Harden was reportedly at a football game in a different state, Evans said.

An employee in late 2016 alerted the California Department of Consumer Affairs.

Investigation intensified after Harden’s election

That investigation has dragged on for years, with a state investigator last December subpoenaing hundreds of pages of receipts, bank records and emails — mere weeks after she narrowly won her seat on the board.

Evans said the district learned in May that even more documents would be requested and personnel would be asked to cooperate in the state’s investigation. Evans said the district turned over additional documents but said he was unaware when staff might be subpoenaed.

A spokesman declined to comment about the department’s slow-to-develop case involving Harden, saying only that the department in general “does not discuss investigations as they are treated as confidential.”

The Department of Consumer Affairs also denied The Bee’s request for records related to any possible allegations against Konatsu, saying they were exempt under the California Public Records Act.

“If the DCA comes out and says that Ericka Harden is a victim of a crime by one of her good friends, then I’m going to work very hard to make sure that Ericka Harden gets all the protection that she deserves and that people understand that she was the victim,” Evans said.

“... I hope they don’t just walk away from it,” Evans said. “Let us know if she’s innocent. Let us know who’s guilty, whatever it is.”