Disgraced LAUSD employee Grace Peng emotionless in court

An alleged fraudster within the Los Angeles Unified School District appeared in a downtown court on Friday charged with taking part in a huge money laundering scam.

Disgraced Hong “Grace” Peng, 53, — who worked as a technical project manager for LAUSD — pled not guilty to facilitating an alleged eye-popping $22 million kickback scheme.

The case comes as the scandal-plagued school district reels from fraud claims against Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. 

Peng, of Pasadena, was dressed in a blue pin-striped jacked, blue collared shirt and with her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She stood before Judge Theresa McGonigle in Dept. 30 after a $500,000 warrant was issued for her to appear.

During the hearing, Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins of the Public Integrity Division, revealed there were 24,000 pages of evidence to be turned over to Peng’s defense.

Peng, repped by private counsel Rayn Gravelly, appeared emotionless with her head slightly bowed during the 10 minute hearing and only said one word in court – “yes” – when the judge asked if she understood what was happened during the proceedings. 

She was released on her own recognizance, and declined to speak to The California Post. 

Peng was required to surrender all passports and wear an ankle monitor with GPS tracking. She is forbidden from leaving the U.S. and will require permission from the court to leave California. 

She was ordered to attend a local police station to be booked, photographed and finger-printed. 

A preliminary setting hearing is scheduled for June 10. 

Attorney Higgins told The Post after the hearing that the number of pages of evidence will exceed the 24,000 number he mentioned in court.

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Peng faces two felony charges — money laundering and having a financial interest in an official contract— for her alleged role in the scheme. The allegations date back to 2018.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman called the racket the largest kickback scheme ever in the nation’s second-largest school system.

“This case involves a blatant abuse of public trust — funneling taxpayer dollars intended for students into personal coffers,” Hochman said in a statement on March 26.

The “multi-year, multi-contract pay-to-play arrangement … siphoned millions of dollars from our schools.”

An arrest warrant was issued for Peng on March 19.

Peng’s co-accused, Gautham Sampath of Flower Mound, Texas, was a senior executive at Innive, the company that received the LAUSD contracts.

Their alleged scheme was exposed in 2022, after one of the involved parties bragged about it at a professional conference and was overheard by another LAUSD employee who reported the comments to district officials, the official complaint.

Sampath is expected to be arraigned on April 17.