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Grand Jury Clears County Treasurer Street

The Orange County district attorney’s investigation of county Treasurer-Tax Collector Chriss Street has cleared him of wrongdoing in the remodeling of his office and taking paid time from work to tend to legal issues.

The district attorney released the results of a grand jury investigation Wednesday and found no evidence to indict Street on any of three counts.

Claims that Street had split a remodeling project for his office into several small projects to avoid a competitive bidding process were rejected by the grand jury.

Because all of the contracts were less than $125,000, and no single contractor had more than one job, the project was found to be within the contract code for public work, according to a statement by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

Street also had no knowledge that a memo he signed for the remodeling had a wrong date on it and was written in a way that favored a contractor for work, according to the district attorney.

The memo, which some claim put other potential contractors at a disadvantage, was written by another person who never implicated Street in the matter.

Street also got off the hook for being paid while attending court appointments in Los Angeles related to fraud charges brought against him for his former role as manager of the bankrupt Fruehauf Corp.’s pension plan.

The grand jury found that as a salaried employee Street was entitled to pay since he did some work for the county on those days.

There also wasn’t enough evidence that Street misused public funds to make notebooks he gave out to the press because the cost was deemed “incidental and minimal” by the grand jury, according to the district attorney.

Street still faces a civil suit over his time as trustee of Fruehauf’s pension fund.

He became county treasurer last year and has come under fire for his office renovation and investment choices.

Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors considered revoking Street’s investment powers but left them intact for another year.

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