Former youth soccer chief gets 2 years in California

A former La Quinta youth soccer commissioner


pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than

$100,000 from the organization.
Sharon Schumaier, 42, was immediately sentenced

to a two-year state prison term by Riverside County

Superior Court Judge Thomas Douglass.
The judge also ordered her to pay $113,000 in

restitution to the La Quinta American Youth Soccer

Organization.
As part of the plea, 39 felony counts of

embezzlement were dismissed, which Deputy

District Attorney Earl Roberts called a ``fair

resolution of the case.
“Mrs. Schumaier has received an appropriate

sentence for her actions, and, hopefully, everyone

she betrayed can now begin to move on,” Roberts

said. “It will be a long road, but everyone involved

can take some solace in the fact that Mrs. Schumaier

is behind bars in state prison where she belongs.”
Laura Quattlebaum of La Quinta, whose two children

played in La Quinta AYSO for six years, called the

news “awesome.”
“Justice is served,” she said. “I'm glad she finally did

it, accepting the responsibility and suffering the

consequences.
“I felt bad for the kids, though,” she added. “But

kids are resilient and are out there to have fun.”
That Schumaier confessed to allegations she'd

previously outright denied was sweet justice for the

organization, said Andrew Nielsen, regional

commissioner for La Quinta AYSO.
“She went into court and had to admit to stealing the

full amount we alleged — $113,000. That was a big

thing for us,” he said.
Schumaier was asked to leave AYSO in June 2009 for

failing to provide financial records.
She wrote checks from the AYSO's bank account to

her husband and their company, Desert Cities

Automotive in Indio, over a two-year period,

according to a declaration in support of an arrest

warrant.



Investigator Brad Farwell, who prepared the

declaration, said Schumaier lied on her application

to AYSO about two previous convictions in Los

Angeles and Orange counties.





Schumaier pleaded guilty to grand theft of personal

property and money laundering in Orange County

Superior Court in January 1996. She was convicted

of forgery in Los Angeles County in July 1997.



She wrote the checks to her company without

approval from AYSO, according to Farwell. A co-

signer on at least 11 of the fraudulent checks told

investigators that the signatures were not his and he

had no knowledge of the checks.



Schumaier also admitted Monday of using a friend's

name to fraudulently obtain checks on a credit card

account.



The identity theft case stems from earlier this year,

when an acquaintance of Schumaier contacted Indio

detectives to allege that she had taken financial

documents from a home without permission in May,

said Indio police spokesman Ben Guitron.



Schumaier tried to forge documents in an attempt to

transfer funds into her account, Guitron said.



Nielsen said the organization was glad to have the

Advertisement case behind them so they can concentrate on the

current and next soccer seasons.



Quattlebaum has since moved her children to the

Desert United Soccer Club in Palm Desert because i

t's more competitive — not because of Schumaier,

she said.



“No, because she was outnumbered by good

people,” Quattlebaum said.