A former director of food services for the Los Angeles Unified School District and onetime adjunct Culinary Arts instructor for College of the Canyons has pleaded guilty to charges that he illegally approved LAUSD contracts and forged a signature on an LAUSD application, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

David Glenn Binkle, 57, entered his plea to three felony counts of conflict of interest and one felony count of forgery.

Binkle was immediately sentenced to formal probation for three years and 90 days of community service.

Deputy District Attorneys Susan Ser and David Barkhurst of the Public Integrity Division prosecuted the case.

Between 2010 and 2014, Binkle illegally approved contracts where he had a conflict of interest, prosecutors said. He also forged a signature on an LAUSD vendor application.

The offenses were discovered in August 2013 after an LAUSD audit. He denied the accusations but was placed on unpaid leave and then resigned in 2014.

Binkle, a Culinary Arts instructor at COC through spring 2017, was formally charged in state criminal court in August 2017, when he entered a not guilty plea to 15 charges relating to misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement of public funds, conflict of interest, perjury and forgery. He faced 13 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Case BA459686 was investigated by the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.