Connecticut woman accused of PTO embezzlement

 The woman accused of embezzling more than $12,700 from a Brookfield Parent Teacher Organization also faces civil suits on charges that she failed to pay her credit card bills and hit a pedestrian.
Monica Bevilacqua, of Brookfield, was arrested late last week after police said she took money from the Center Elementary School PTO’s accounts. She is due in court on Jan. 10.


Gene Zingaro, Bevilacqua’s attorney, said his client plans to pay full restitution to the PTO. He has said she has a clean record and wants to “make this right.”

“My end goal is to get these charges dismissed,” Zingaro said.
But court records show Bevilacqua was asked last month to pay $100,000 to settle a civil case with a pedestrian she hit and injured on Main Street in Danbury in 2016. Bevilacqua admitted in court documents to hitting the man.

Her attorney for that case did not return a request for comment. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Feb. 5.
An attempt to reach Bevilacqua on Wednesday was unsuccessful.
In November, a judge also ordered Bevilacqua to pay almost $17,000 she owed to Citibank for her Mastercard bills.
Bevilacqua was treasurer of the Center PTO from November 2016 through July 2018. The PTO believes the embezzlement would have occurred between August 2017 and July 2018.
When the new PTO board took over, members noticed discrepancies in their books and contacted the police, the PTO said in a statement.
“We are deeply saddened and angered that this has happened, and most importantly, hurt by how this impacts our children,” the statement said. “We look forward to a resolution soon where we can move forward and focus on what matters most — making our school the best place for our children.”
Center PTO members, as well as members of the PTOs at other Brookfield schools, could not be reached for further comment on Wednesday.
At the Board of Education’s Wednesday night meeting, residents compared this incident to the 2015 arrest of the district’s finance chief, who was charged with stealing thousands of dollars from the schools.
Residents urged the school board to better oversee the PTO’s finances, but board Chair Colette Sturm said the organizations are separate. The PTO has its own treasurer and accounting system apart from the school board, she said.

“This was not money disappearing from the Board of Education,” Sturm said. “This is purely a PTO issue.”
Chief James Purcell said he recommends PTOs follow their bylaws and conduct appropriate audits to prevent similar problems.
“Good business practices are always designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening,” he said.
Police said Bevilacqua wrote 11 checks to herself or to “cash” and forged another person’s signature on three of those checks, police said.
Bevilacqua was also accused of using the organization’s credit to make 139 purchases from Amazon, 19 purchases at other merchants and 24 purchases from DoorDash, an on-demand meal delivery service.
Bevilacqua previously acted as chair of the Brookfield Democratic Town Committee and briefly served on the Huckleberry Hill PTO in September.
She is on indefinite suspension from her job at the Connecticut Institute For Communities in Danbury, where she led the the regional Head Start program. This is an initiative that helps provide early education to more than 350 low-income preschool children and support for their families.
Jim Maloney, CEO of the Connecticut Institute For Communities, said Bevilacqua could not have embezzled from that organization because she did not have signature authority on any bank accounts.
Maloney added the organization has “very strong” internal controls that require financial transactions to be approved by the controller or chief financial officer, the accounts payable clerk, and himself or the chief operating officer.
CIFC’s finances are also reviewed by an independent auditor each year, Maloney said.
“There has never been any identification of any problems,” he said.