SANTA ANA, Calif. – A parole agent was convicted and sentenced today for exchanging embezzled California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) funds for narcotics prescribed to a parolee. Scott Patric Keblis, 50, Chino, pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement by a public employee and one misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to a court offer of 90 days in Orange County Jail, three years formal probation, and was ordered to pay restitution. Keblis is also ineligible to ever hold any office of honor, trust, or profit in California.

At the time of the crime, Keblis was employed as a CDCR parole agent.

On Nov. 5, 2015, the CDCR received an anonymous report that Keblis was providing out of state bus passes in exchange for narcotics a parolee was prescribed.

On Nov. 23, 2015, the defendant obtained two bus passes and two $40 Target gift cards from the CDCR, claiming he needed to give them to a parolee under his supervision. Later that day, Keblis drove to Huntington Beach to meet with a different parolee, who was not under Keblis' supervision, in his state vehicle. Keblis exchanged the bus passes, gift cards, and $30 of his personal money for 26 of the parolee's prescription hydrocodone pills.

On July 27, 2016, Keblis was arrested by CDCR Internal Affairs, who investigated this case.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Brock Zimmon of the Special Prosecutions Unit prosecuted this case.

Orange County District Attorney / Case # 16CF1898 / February 6, 2017