Ex-officer charged with embezzling from CHP employee morale club

A former California Highway Patrol officer has been charged with stealing more than $900 from his CHP employee morale club, prosecutors said.

Mark Matthew Linza, 40, of Huntington Beach faces one felony count of embezzlement by fiduciary of trust, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office. If convicted, he could face three years in county jail.

He is scheduled to be arraigned June 28 at Orange County Superior Court in Westminster.

Prosecutors allege that Linza, while serving as president of the 670 Club, an organization that promotes camaraderie among CHP employees in the Westminster area, took control of the club’s bank account and took a “series of steps that allowed his activities as club president to remain unmonitored.”

According to prosecutors, he obtained an ATM card for the club’s account — something his predecessors did not — and in February 2014 withdrew $1,000 and put $800 of it in his personal bank account. In December 2015, prosecutors allege, he withdrew $120 from the club account and deposited it in his account.

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