The former executive director of the New Mexico Martin Luther King Jr. Commission will spend three years on unsupervised probation and must pay around $5,800 in restitution in connection with an embezzlement case, a judge ordered Wednesday.
Kimberly Greene pleaded guilty in December to violating the governmental conduct act, fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy. Upon successful completion of probation, her charges will be dismissed.
According to her indictment, Greene received reimbursement for expenses related to a leadership trip in 2014 even though all of the costs of the trip had been covered by the state and, according to prosecutors, “abused that position to essentially defraud money from the state of New Mexico which she used for her own use.”
Prosecutor Nick McDonnell asked for a three-year sentence.
At Greene’s sentencing hearing Wednesday, state District Judge Cristina Jaramillo said the commission lacked oversight and that prison would serve no purpose in Greene’s case.
“It leaves those individuals who work day in and day out with no direction, no set parameters for behavior if the oversight wasn’t there,” Jaramillo said.
Greene now lives in Houston, where she works as an English teacher. Jaramillo said that she must avoid situations where she might be overseeing money.
Greene is the last of three defendants to be sentenced in the case.
