By Courtney Tanner | The Salt Lake Tribune | Photo courtesy of Utah State University

As a Utah State University employee, Angela Aurora Rodriguez’s job was to visit high schools across New Mexico and recruit students to attend USU, particularly its southern Utah campuses.

But the principals at some of the schools Rodriguez was assigned to visit told investigators they had no idea who she was and had never met her. Some said their schools hadn’t been asked to host a USU recruiter in years.

A Utah special agent alleges that Rodriguez, 46, never actually went to most of the schools on the list she was given when hired by USU’s Blanding campus in southern Utah. Instead, she allegedly used more than $25,000 in state funds on personal expenses and to travel around the state and country for trips unrelated to her job — while at the same time logging fake mileage for reimbursement.

Rodriguez was charged this week with three felony counts for theft and deception, misusing public money and communications fraud for nearly a year of unauthorized purchases during her brief employment.

It’s the latest case involving a USU employee in a string of similar misspending issues over the past several years, including another staff member at USU Eastern in Price who was paid for more than two years with little evidence he completed any work.

Read more at SLTrib.com.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.