MOORPARK : Ingrid Ely Resigns College Alumni Post

Ingrid Ely, wife of embattled Ventura County Community College District Trustee Tom Ely, has resigned as president of the Moorpark College Alumni Assn., saying she is tired of being the subject of “false accusations and gossip.”

Ingrid Ely, who is under investigation by the district attorney’s office for possible misuse of college travel funds, quietly gave college officials her letter of resignation at a school dinner Wednesday night.

“I wasn’t getting any support from the college . . . and I didn’t think I could be of any more benefit to the organization,” she said. For 10 years she held the unpaid job of organizing alumni activities at Moorpark College.

“People don’t realize that there are consequences to their negative actions,” Ingrid Ely said in an interview Sunday. “I’m sorry it worked out this way.”

The district attorney’s office has said it is investigating whether she and her husband misappropriated several thousand dollars in community college district funds by using it for trips instead of student scholarships.

Investigators are also looking into whether Ingrid Ely charged the alumni association $866 for travel expenses that her husband had already charged to the college district.

Meanwhile, the district’s board of trustees has commissioned an audit of Tom Ely’s expense records after learning that he had incurred gambling debts and that he used his office telephone to call casinos in Nevada.

Recently, Timothy Hirschberg, a district trustee, said the alumni association, which Ingrid Ely helped found, is a “sham” and that it had “only one purpose--to fund travel for a trustee’s wife.”

Ingrid Ely said Hirschberg’s comment was one of the accusations that prompted her to resign.