Former New York state health commissioner pleads guilty to frau

    NEW YORK, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Former New York state health commissioner Antonia Novello has taken a plea deal to avoid jail time, the NY local TV channel NY reported Friday.     Novello pleaded guilty to felony fraud-related charges Friday morning.     Novello, 64, had been charged in a 20-count indictment with using state workers to run errands, take her on shopping sprees, and act as house servants.     She was ordered to perform 250 hours of community service and pay 22,500 U.S. dollars in restitution. However, Novello is allowed to keep her physician's license, says the report.     Novello is a Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as 14th Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Novello is the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General.     Last month, she pleaded not guilty. But the state inspector general said her actions cost the state nearly 50,000 dollars.     Novello's lawyer reportedly said the case was politically motivated.     "No good deed goes unpunished," her attorney E. Stewart Jones was cited as saying. "She treated those employees very well, she treated them like family and they turned on her. Obviously, politics is a dirty business."     She reportedly faced up to 12 years in prison.     The charge stems from her filing false vehicle sheets with the health department that did not disclose that a state driver was being used to do her own personal business.     Novello served Commissioner of Health for the State of New York from 1999 to 2006. Novello was charged in a 20 count indictment on May 12 in New York with theft of government services, defrauding the government and filing a false instrument.