RIALTO, Calif. – How long does it take a school accountant to steal between $1.8 million and $3 million in student lunch money by stuffing wads of cash into her bra?

That all depends how closely school administrators are watching, and whether or not they object.

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Judith Oakes, a former Rialto Unified School District accountant for 25 years, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015 for stealing at least $1.8 million from the district.

According to a news report from ABC7.com, “Surveillance video shows Oakes putting stacks of money into a blue bag bound for the school safe, then stuffing one of the wads of cash into her bra.

“In court, Thomas Haldorsen, the district’s associate superintendent of personnel services, said Oakes did this countless times over the years.”

“I should note that during the entire period of her employment, over $3 million are unaccounted for, and Miss Oakes is believed to have stolen it,” Haldorsen was quoted as saying.

So Oakes stuffed her bra with wads of school cash “countless times over the years” without anybody noticing the missing money? Were there other surveillance videos showing her doing this, besides the one mentioned in the news story?

Why did it take so long for school officials to uncover the situation?

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A clue might have come in March 2014, when former school Superintendent Harold Cebrun left the district under pressure from the school board, after being on administrative leave since the previous September.

“The school board placed Cebrun on leave after district accountant Judith Oakes was arrested on suspicion of embezzling $1.8 million from the district’s student lunch money program,” according to a report from SBSun.com.

“Cebrun acknowledged having a personal relationship with Oakes but denied the pair were romantically involved. On March 7, board members announced Cebrun had agreed to retire from the district at the end of the month.”

Hmmm.

“Photos obtained by the newspaper show Cebrun and Oakes kissing,” the SBSun.com report said. “Rumors have circulated for months within the district about a romantic relationship between the two.

“But on Friday, Cebrun said that accusations of an affair with Oakes are part of an effort to force him out of office and are simply wrong.”

But ABC7.com noted that “the Rialto Police Department said Oakes lived a lavish lifestyle with credit card bills around $10,000 to $12,000 a month.”

As a personal friend of Oakes, as well as her boss, Cebrun might have noticed her lavish lifestyle, wondered where the money was coming from, and double-checked school accounts to make sure everything was in order.

If he did that, he obviously didn’t tell anybody.

“Everything she had, she had before I met her,” Cebrun told SBSun.com. “Everything she had. There’s only one thing she bought in the time after I had met her. She traded her old (Chevrolet) Suburban in and got a new Suburban.”

In any case, it appears that it will be some time before the Rialto school district recovers the stolen lunch money.

“The judge has ordered Oakes pay everything back,” ABC7.com reported. “Both sides have agreed that she will pay $150 a month as soon as she’s out of jail. At that rate, it will take more than 800 years before everything is paid back.”