SANTA ANA – A Republican activist and former treasurer for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s re-election committee pleaded guilty Tuesday to two dozen felonies for embezzling more than $300,000.

Jack Wenpo Wu faces up to four years, four months in prison after pleading guilty to three felony counts of grand theft by embezzlement and 21 felony counts of forgery, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say Wu, a 46-year-old Newport Beach resident, embezzled from the Committee to Re-elect Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to repay money he was accused of stealing from another employer.

Wu’s attorney declined to comment on his client’s guilty plea. Representatives for Rohrabacher indicated that the congressman did not wish to comment on the plea.

Along with two decades in finance, Wu has been active over the years in Orange County politics.

In freelance columns written for the Register and the Daily Pilot, Wu described himself as a longtime Republican Party loyalist.

Shortly before his arrest, Wu was appointed to the city of Newport Beach’s Finance Committee, an advisory body he has since resigned from.

Wu began working as a volunteer, unpaid treasurer for the congressman’s re-election committee in 2004.

For 11 years, Wu ran the committee’s bank accounts, served as the custodian of records and filed Federal Election Committee reports.

The congressman fired Wu in 2015 after members of his committee discovered only $187 in an account that was supposed to have about $185,000. A subsequent investigation by the District Attorney’s Office led to Wu’s arrest nearly a year ago.

While working as a volunteer treasurer for Rohrabacher, Wu also ran his own accounting company, Wubell Services, and served as a controller for Russell Fischer Inc.

Initially earning an annual $70,000 paycheck from Russell Fischer, Wu in 2012 became an independent contractor with the company and saw his pay reduced, according to prosecutors.

In 2012 and 2013, authorities allege, Wu began embezzling from Russell Fischer, taking tens of thousands of dollars. The theft was discovered in 2013, prosecutors said. Wu was fired and reportedly agreed to make restitution payments to Russell Fischer.

District Attorney’s Office investigators believe Wu paid back Russell Fischer with at least some of the $238,000 he was suspected of embezzling from Rohrabacher’s re-election committee.

Wu is scheduled to return to court for sentencing March 13.

Contact the writer: semery@ocregister.com