A former Colorado health-exchange director pled guilty yesterday to stealing taxpayer money from a Montana nonprofit housing agency and was sentenced to two years of probation and a $1,000 fine.

Christa Ann McClure, formerly one of five directors of the state health exchange, resigned in March after news broke of her indictment for eight counts of theft and fraud.

Though the Colorado health exchange had performed a full background check and had called references, it did not find out about her Jan. 16 indictment until after she had been hired last March.

In exchange for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor theft of public money charge, the court dismissed eight felony counts against McClure. As the Denver Post reported earlier this year, each of those counts carried “potential penalties of five, 10 or 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.”

— Jillian Kay Melchior is a Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.