- A former Chico State accounting professor and department chair and his department secretary plead no-contest to charges of grand theft in Butte County Superior Court Tuesday. According to the Butte County District Attorney's Office, 54-year-old Timothy Kizirian, a former tenured professor and the chair of the Department of Accounting in the School of Business at Chico State University, along with his department secretary, 57-year-old Ronda McGrath, entered their pleas in a case that stemmed from an internal university investigation into financial irregularities in the department. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey says that the investigation alleged that approximately $1.12 million had been spent over a period of several years. Kizirian faces up to three years in jail and is scheduled for sentencing on May 11. McGrath was sentenced to one year of court probation