A former South Texas juvenile justice department employee was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $1.2 million worth of fajitas with county funds.

Gilberto Escamilla, 53, who worked at the Cameron County Juvenile Justice Department, was arrested in August after a driver from Labatt Food Service in Harlingen called the department's kitchen and said he was delivering an 800-pound order of fajitas, according to the Brownsville Herald.

Defendant Gilberto Escamilla before the start of a sentencing hearing Friday in the 107th state District Courtroom in Brownsville. Escamilla entered two pleas of guilty for charges related to the theft of over $1 million in meats he stole and resold over two years through his position with Cameron County. (Jason Hoekema / The Associated Press)

The kitchen employee told the driver that the juvenile department does not serve fajitas, but the driver told her that he had been delivering fajitas there for the past nine years.

Escamilla was fired from his job and arrested the next day. When officers searched his house, they found packages of the stolen food in his refrigerator.

Officials said he took $1,251,578 worth of fajita orders and delivered them to his own customers, the Herald reported.

"It was selfish. It started small and got bigger and out of control," Escamilla said while testifying in court. "It got to the point where I couldn't control it anymore."

Cameron County Assistant District Attorney Peter Gilman asked visiting state District Judge J. Manuel Banales to give Escamilla a 50-year sentence to send a message that theft by public servants warrants a long prison sentence.