CA-AD13: California Republican Assembly candidate pleaded guilty to welfare fraud

STOCKTON, California — Denise Aguilar Mendez, a Republican candidate running for a California Assembly seat, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of welfare fraud in 2020, court records show.

Mendez is a conservative activist who founded the anti-vaccine group Freedom Angels and attended the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. She is challenging Democrat Rhodesia Ransom in the race for outgoing Democratic Rep. Carlos Villapudua’s Stockton-area Assembly seat.

Documents obtained by POLITICO show Aguilar was charged with three felonies in 2019 — aid by misrepresentation, perjury and grand theft of personal property — for allegedly cheating the San Joaquin County Health Services Agency out of $10,984 in public funds between 2016 and 2018. Aguilar initially pleaded not guilty to the charges before agreeing to a deal in September 2020 that saw the charges dropped to misdemeanor welfare fraud, according to records.

The court ordered Aguilar to repay the funds, assessed $385 in fines and sentenced her to 120 hours of community service at the Stockton Homeless Shelter and 40 days in jail. Her sentence was later reduced to 20 days, which she served in February 2023, according to records.


https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/17/california-assembly-candidate-guilty-plea-fraud-00184180