One search of "principal fraud"
1. Catholic School in DC 08/03/2022
A former principal at a Catholic school in D.C. was sentenced to 30 months in prison for stealing at least $175,000 meant for school-related services and activities.
Bridget Coates, 49, of Virginia, pleaded guilty to a charge of wire fraud last April and was sentenced Wednesday.
She was the principal of St. Thomas More Catholic School in Southeast when she began taking money from the school’s Home School Association in 2012. Her scheme lasted through December 2017, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Columbia said. Coates resigned in 2018.
As principal, Coates had access to the association’s checks, which were supposed to pay for school-related purposes.
But prosecutors said that she “engaged in a pattern of purchasing personal good and services” with the money, including buying designers fashion and qualifying for a home mortgage loan. She also wrote 66 unauthorized checks and deposited money into her personal account.
In addition to her prison sentence, Coates has to pay $175,000 to the Archdiocese of Washington, as well an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgment.
https://wtop.com/local/2022/08/former-principal-of-dc-catholic-school-gets-2-1-2-years-for-embezzling/#:~:text=services%20and%20activities.-,A%20former%20principal%20at%20a%20Catholic%20school%20in%20D.C.%20was,April%20and%20was%20sentenced%20Wednesday.
2. Catholic School in PA 06/08/2023
John C. McGrath, 57, former principal at a Maple Glen Catholic school, recently admitted to felony charges that he embezzled upward of $25,000 in school funds between May 2020 and October 2021.
McGrath was the principal at Our Lady of Mercy Regional Catholic School in the Maple Glen section of Upper Dublin. He faces a sentence of three years’ probation and a requirement to make full restitution after he’s sentenced.
According to Assistant District Attorney Tanner C. Beck, McGrath admitted to using the school’s credit cards to take unauthorized trips and visits to bars and restaurants, and pocketing money from a school fundraiser.
McGrath was once a Philadelphia police officer before becoming a principal, according to his lawyer.
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Kyle Douglas, the 51-year-old former principal of Inglewood High School and Pasadena’s Woodrow Wilson Middle School, pleaded guilty to misappropriation of public funds, forgery and grand theft late last week, said Los Angeles District Attorney spokesman Greg Risling.
While employed at Inglewood High in 2017, Douglas negotiated an unauthorized contract with a company for private use of the school’s parking lot, according to a statement from the DA’s office.
He profited about $57,000 from the deal.
Inglewood Unified School District did not return multiple requests for comment. Douglas also did not respond to a request for comment.
Douglas was later hired by the Pasadena Unified School District, in October 2017, to serve as principal for Woodrow Wilson Middle School.
In 2019, Douglas collected about $10,000 for a Wilson Middle student trip to China — and never paid the company that he hired to organize the trip, the DA’s statement said.
He was placed on leave June 27, 2019, and later “released from employment” on June 30, 2020, a representative for that district said. The district declined to provide further comment on Douglas’ case.
Wilson Middle School is now closed. The PUSD board voted to close the school in late 2019 after a series of budgetary issues related to declining student enrollment.
“Betraying students, their parents and school administrators,” District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement, “is the ultimate failure for those who are the face and voice of a school.”
Douglas’ career in academia began in 1996. He began as a social studies teacher at Marshall Fundamental School and Rose City High School, where he worked until 2007, according to a PUSD news release from the time of his hiring.
He later became the dean of activities for the Temple City Unified School District. In 2009, he was appointed assistant principal of the Alhambra Unified School District.
Douglas joined the Inglewood Unified School District as principal in 2015, the news release said.
Douglas pleaded guilty on Friday, Jan. 21, and was sentenced to formal probation, 120 days community service and ordered to make $67,700 in restitution, Risling said.
https://www.dailybreeze.com/2022/01/26/ex-principal-pleads-guilty-to-3-felonies-stealing-67000-from-pasadena-middle-inglewood-high-schools/
4. Boston New Mission High School 8/1/2023
Naia Wilson was the head of school for New Mission High School, a pilot school in Hyde Park, for 13 years. Over the course of 3 years, she allegedly used over $38,000 in school money to pay for vacations for herself and her friends.
Authorities have charged a former Boston Public Schools principal with one count of wire fraud for allegedly misusing nearly $40,000 in public money on things like all-inclusive personal vacations.
Mattapan resident Naia Wilson, 60, served as the head of school at Hyde Park‘s New Mission High School, an autonomous pilot school within Boston Public Schools, from 2006 to 2019, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts said in a press release Tuesday.
Between September 2016 and May 2019, Wilson requested checks from the school’s account that were listed as being for other people, the release said. She then allegedly fraudulently endorsed those checks and deposited the checks into her own account. The persons the checks were for never knew of the checks or authorized Wilson to deposit them in her own account.
Wilson used some of the embezzled $38,806 to pay for two all-inclusive vacations to Barbados for herself and her friends in 2016 and 2018, the release said. Both times, Wilson requested checks payable to other people who went on the trips.
“Instead of working honestly on behalf of her students, Naia Wilson is accused of abusing her authority and using the school’s budget as her own personal slush fund,” FBI Boston Special Agent Christopher DiMenna said in the release.
Wilson recorded the fraudulent checks as being for stipends and expense reimbursements, but some of the people the checks were issued to never worked at New Mission, The Boston Globe reported.
Federal prosecutors began investigating Wilson at the same time that an independent audit of Boston Public School’s spending flagged New Mission for shoddy recordkeeping, the newspaper wrote.
Superintendent Mary Skipper thanked the U.S. Attorney’s office for its efforts to restore misappropriated funds to Boston students in a statement Tuesday.
“The Boston Public Schools takes its responsibility as a steward of public funds very seriously,” Skipper said. “…Since these incidents, the Boston Public Schools has implemented additional internal protocols and procedures to prevent a situation like this from occurring again.”
5. Chicago Public Schools
A former Chicago principal faces a 10-count federal indictment for allegedly stealing $200,000 in overtime money from other employees. Sarah Jackson Abedelal was a principal at Brennemann Elementary School, at 4251 N. Clarendon Ave. in the Uptown neighborhood. According to federal prosecutors, Abedelal, 57, engaged in the scheme from 2012 to 2019 while she was principal at the school.
The indictment said Abedelal told some school employees that she would authorize overtime pay for hours they didn't work. "She directed them to then deliver the proceeds of the unearned overtime to Abedelal or another individual," the indictment states. Abedelal told the employees that the money would be used to pay for school expenses at Brennemann Elementary School. Instead, she intended to convert the funds for her own personal use.
The federal charges allege that Abedelal stole at least $200,000 in CPS money. through the scheme. Abedelal is charged with ten counts of wire fraud. The indictment states that Abedelal told school employees to take their unearned overtime money, convert it into cash on the day the paychecks were deposited into their bank accounts. Abedelal would later meet with those workers employees individually in her office or classrooms to get the cash from them. To hide the theft, Abedelal used the money to buy money orders at a currency exchange. She would then use the money orders to pay for her personal expenses. One item included the mortgage on her home, according to the indictment.
Abedelal was arrested Wednesday morning. She is set to make a federal court Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather K. McShain. (She admitted to fraud but I could not find anything about sentencing. Supposedly she was cooperating which might lead to a lesser sentence.)
More on above and related cases: A former clerk at South Side Public Elementary School has been indicted in an extended federal fraud case involving wrongful ordering of school supplies to provide iPhones, iPads and prepaid gift cards for personal use to school officials. alleged plan to do so.
Ashley Beard, 34, who worked as a business clerk at Caldwell Math and Science Academy at 85th Street and South Craigiere Avenue before resigning in 2019, was charged with wire fraud in a superseding indictment brought in US District Court on Monday.
According to the 10-page indictment, Anthony Rasmussen, 47, a sales associate for a suburban vendor who had a contract to supply Chicago public schools with paper, printer toner and other school supplies was also indicted.
His indictment comes three months after Rasmussen’s coworker at the supply company, Debra Bannack, 62, of Schomberg, was charged with the same alleged scheme. Bannack has pleaded not guilty.
Beard and Rasmussen were the fifth and sixth people to be charged in the ongoing investigation, which also separated former Brenneman Elementary School principal Sarah Jackson Abedelal and two of her associates, who have been charged in a separate indictment. Court records show Hammond’s beard, and Des Plaines’ Rasmussen are to be indicted on Friday on the impeachment.
A CPS spokesman said Tuesday that an issue involving “potentially fraudulent timekeeping” by Beard was first referred to the district’s legal team in February 2018, and after a review Found “further misconduct”, Beard was scheduled for a disciplinary convention.
“Soon thereafter, Beard resigned and admitted wrongdoing in his January 2019 resignation letter,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to the Tribune. “The CPS Law Department then referred the matter to the office of the Inspector General and since then, the investigation has expanded.”
The statement said CPS holds its staff to high standards and that the district’s legal team, if necessary, will refer cases to the inspector general to determine whether the practice can proceed. review and criminal charges. ,
The CPS placed Beard on its Do Not-Hire list after his resignation from 2007 to work for the district in some capacity.
According to the indictment, from 2015 to 2017, the defendants planned to falsify order records to make it appear that legitimate school supplies — such as paper, ink and toner — were distributed when, instead of purchasing an iPad, worth thousands of dollars. was used. iPhones and gift cards for personal use.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/6/14/23167856/cps-school-clerk-federal-wire-fraud-charge-investigation-chicago-public-schools
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