Ex-Valentine ISD Business Manager Admits to Stealing $300,000 in District Funds

Former Valentine ISD business manager/tax assessor Eddie Villarreal Jr., pleaded guilty related to his scheme to fraudulently misappropriate school district funds, federal prosecutors announced on Friday.

Villarreal is believed to have caused over $300,000 in losses to VISD.

According to court records, at the time Villarreal, 43, of Marfa, was VISD’s chief financial officer, he used his position to defraud the district by:

• Using two VISD credit cards to make hundreds of unauthorized personal purchases totaling thousands of dollars; issued over $10,000 in unauthorized checks to himself from the school district’s accounts.
  
  
• Issuing over $20,000 in unauthorized checks from VISD accounts to cover personal expenses owed to a credit card company.
  
  
• Changing bank account information for certain current and former employees (and then generating over $100,000 in fraudulent payments to those current and former employees) for work that did not actually occur — and then routing those payments to his own personal bank accounts without the knowledge or permission of the employees.
  

Villarreal used the ill-gotten funds for hundreds of personal purchases, including (but not limited to) purchases for travel, lodging, home improvements, hardware store purchases, personal cell phone bills, fuel, oil changes, convenience store purchases, Airbnb rentals, personal flight purchases, court records reflect.

Villarreal pleaded guilty to one count of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds and eight counts of wire fraud, and he will be sentenced by a federal judge on Feb. 21, 2025.

He faces up to 10 years in prison for the theft count, and up to 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count.