On the field, stealing bases is good. Off the field, embezzling more than $87,000 from Tijeras Creek Little League in Rancho Santa Margarita? Not so good.
Orange County Sheriff Deputies arrested Joshua Paul Nowack, a 43-year-old Trabuco Canyon man, this week for the alleged crime. Prosecutors followed his cuffing up with 18 felony counts of embezzlement by fiduciary of trust.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) office, Nowack served as Tijeras Creek Little League’s treasurer for more than three years until September 2017. When a new treasurer took over a month later, the league’s financial records appeared to show Nowack playing some moneyball with strange withdrawals and deposits.
The new treasurer reported the alleged embezzlement to authorities who investigated the case. Prosecutors now charge Nowack with transferring more than $87,500 from the little league program into his personal bank account.
Arraigned today at Central Justice Center, Nowack also has a sentencing enhancement against him for property damage topping $65,000. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years and four months in Orange County Jail. Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Miller from the OCDA’s Major Fraud Unit is on the case
If convicted under the stiffest penalty, by the time Nowack is released Mike Scioscia will probably still be in the dugout coaching the Angels, who’ll probably only have the 2002 World Series Championship banner to look back at after all those years.
Gabriel San Román is from Anacrime. He’s a journalist, subversive historian and the tallest Mexican in OC. He also once stood falsely accused of writing articles on Turkish politics in exchange for free food from DönerG’s!