Sports organizations need checks and balances to prevent embezzlement

The president of Casper Youth Baseball received notices last April that the club’s utilities would be shut off immediately due to payments not being made.

Cindy Garvin checked the organization’s bank account and realized about $50,000 was missing.

“It was one of those gut-wrenching things, where you just go, ‘Oh my God, this can’t be real. Please be wrong,’” Garvin said during a phone interview Friday.

Garvin asked Casper Youth Baseball’s office manager, Caitlyn Tolliver, who handled the group’s funds, for financial records to complete an audit. Tolliver refused to provide the paperwork, according to documents filed in Natrona County Circuit Court in December, and she was fired.

Tolliver is charged with grand larceny for allegedly using the organization’s funds to make personal purchases and write additional paychecks for herself. She stole more than $65,000 from the group, police say.

“I don’t think it generally starts out as ill intent,” said Casper police detective Shannon Daley. “I think one day the bills are short and they need $500 to get to payday. But then they keep on borrowing and borrowing, until it’s nearly impossible to pay it back.”

Another local woman is facing charges that she stole thousands of dollars from the youth organization she worked for.

Katherine Sue Strom is accused of stealing more than $13,000 while she was the director of the Wyoming Youth Sports Association, according to court documents. She allegedly used the organization's bank account to make payments on her credit card and to purchase Kindle e-readers from Amazon.

The organization’s newly elected director contacted Casper police in March about the missing money. Strom was charged in October with two counts of grand larceny and two counts of misdemeanor larceny. She pleaded not guilty in December.

Neither Tolliver nor Strom had a history of fraud, Daley said.

A woman in Gillette, who was the treasurer for the Gillette Hockey Association for four years, was also recently accused of fraud. Micky Culey faces 10 charges of forgery and one charge of larceny, all felonies, according to an affidavit filed in Campbell County District Court in November. Culey allegedly forged checks using the name of an assistant coach.

How it happens

Daley said there are three factors that cause a person in a position of trust to steal money from the organization they represent: opportunity, rationalization and pressure.

The first factor is straightforward.

“If they’d never had access to the business’ checking account, they never would have had the opportunity to steal the money,” Daley said.

Rationalization can come in different forms. Daley said Strom rationalized taking the money because she had been director of the Wyoming Youth Sports Association for 10 years, but the role had only recently become a paid position. Before 2010, the director was a volunteer position. She asserted the checks she wrote herself were back pay for the years she was not paid.

Tolliver declined to be interviewed by police, Daley said, so she wasn’t sure how the woman had rationalized taking the money she took.

The third factor is pressure, oftentimes financial.

"'I won’t make it to payday,' for instance," Daley said.

Tolliver is accused of using Casper Youth Baseball’s debit card to purchase office supplies, a bicycle, a dog kennel, tires, license plates and toys. She allegedly used the account to make cellphone payments.

Tolliver also reportedly wrote a check to Mountain View Elementary School for $400, but the school asked the organization’s former president if the check was authorized, since Casper Youth Baseball is a nonprofit. The man told the school it was not. When approached, Tolliver told him she had accidentally written the check using the wrong bank account.

When authorized purchases go unnoticed or unpunished, the perpetrator develops a sense of invincibility.

“When they’re still not caught, it’s like, ‘Oh, nobody’s ever going to catch me,’” Daley said.

Casper Youth Baseball has amended their policies to prevent another employee from abusing the group’s finances, Garvin said. Five of their nine board members are new, and all major expenses now have to be approved by the board.

“Our customers will see a lot of differences this year,” Garvin said. “We are committed to our customers and giving value to the fees they pay to let their kids play baseball.”

How organizations can prevent it

Oversight is essential for stopping such crimes, Daley said.

Tolliver reported to the Casper Youth Baseball’s board of directors quarterly, and the Wyoming Youth Sports Association had annual meetings that Strom attended, but neither woman was ever required to show bank statements. There was no verification of the funds.

“It was just going off their word,” Daley said. “There was no oversight from other people.”

While it’s not unusual for businesses to have only one person doing the books, Daley said it’s wiser to have one person writing the checks and another person receiving bank statements.

“Having one person receiving money and depositing it and then reconciling the bank statements, you’re at risk of people being able to steal from you,” said Jody Shields, director of the Wyoming Nonprofit Network. “It’s just having more than one person involved in processing, paying and receiving funds.”

Diane Berg, president of the Casper Amateur Hockey Club, said the group’s board of directors must approve all expenses not included in the already-approved operating budget. The organization has a treasurer, who proposes additional expenses at monthly meetings with board members. Berg and three other executives for the club are the only ones with signing authority.

Shields said every nonprofit should take steps to ensure they have procedures in place to prevent an employee from exploiting group funds. That’s more difficult for small nonprofits with only one or two employees, she said, but her organization offers training and checklists for organizations to develop policies.

It’s expected that any organization defrauded by one of their own will feel embarrassed, Daley said, but they shouldn’t beat themselves up too much.

“I think it’s more common than is reported,” the detective said.

Former teacher union boss admits to embezzlement in Wyoming

Former Wyoming Area School District teacher union president Lisa Barrett has been charged with embezzling more than $30,000 in union funds and has worked out a plea bargain with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.


The U.S. attorney issued a press release and filed court documents that include information outlining the charges, the plea agreement and a statement from Barrett. The plea agreement must be approved by a judge in the Middle District court.


Barrett, a high school career technology teacher, resigned her position as union president and requested a sabbatical from work in February at the same time Luzerne County District Attorney Stephanie Salavantis confirmed her office had agreed to look into reports of possible missing funds.


The U.S. attorney is charging Barrett, 48, with one count of embezzlement of funds of a labor organization. The charge has a maximum penalty of five years in prison followed by three years probation and a $250,000 fine, though any sentence is likely to be much lower for a first-time offender.


The plea agreement does not specify what the U.S. attorney might recommend if the agreement is accepted by a judge, but notes the office will recommend a reduction in the sentencing guidelines for the admission of guilt. A judge does not have to accept the attorney recommendation, or even accept the plea agreement.


Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeast Region Spokesman Paul Shemansky said the union had no comment other than to note Barrett is no longer a union member or a teacher and her defense was handled by her own attorney, Christopher Powell, not by the union.


Shemansky also said the PSEA does “offer training on managing money” and that there are “checks and balances” to try to prevent such embezzlement.


Barrett’s written statement filed with the court is a series of acknowledgements that she understands the legal consequences of the plea agreement.

Man sentenced for church embezzlement in Wyoming

A man who stole more than $100,000 from a Wyoming church is headed to prison for longer than he expected.




A judge Thursday went beyond the recommended sentencing guidelines and sentenced James Kulfan to between eight and 20 years in prison.



Kulfan stole at least $125,000 from St. John Vianney Catholic School and Parish in Wyoming, where he worked as the business manager.



He also stole more than $19,000 from a Catholic youth charity with which he was associated, allegedly to pay back money he took from the church.



"I can understand and sympathize with a person taking what doesn't belong to them to put food on their table and a roof over their families head," Father Michael James Alber of St. John Vianney said at the sentencing. "But this isn't what Jim did. Jim Kulfan used what he stole from the parish of St. John Vianney to live a sordid life in strip clubs, to gamble and to rent and furnish his own apartment."



The judge called Kulfan's behavior outrageous.



He said the sentencing guidelines of three to five years didn't go far enough and gave Kulfan a minimum sentence of eight years.

$27,000 missing from school in Wyoming

FROM WYOMINGNEWS.COM -

An embezzlement investigation involving a missing $27,000 is under way at the Village Montessori School in downtown Cheyenne.

Members of the school's board of directors have set an open meeting to discuss the probe at 6 p.m. today at the school at 214 W. 22nd St.
Board President Christen Haller said debits to the school's operating fund were noticed after the termination of former director Teresa Meadowcroft.
"(Meadowcroft) has been there almost 10 years and director for six. So we had a lot of trust in her and were very surprised by this," Haller said.
The firing came in the wake of concerns from the board regarding the school's administration, Haller said.
"We'd had some general administration issues and decided to terminate on those," she said.
Meadowcroft was in charge of paying school bills and the bookkeeping, Board Treasurer Stefanie Illingworth said.
"She applied for the debit card; her signature is on the application for card," Illingworth added. "I don't think she could have been oblivious to all of it because she was doing the bank reconciliation."
The charges to the school's account primarily came from the debit card in Meadowcroft's name that Illingworth said never was approved.
"We appointed an interim director (Jamie Beatty) who is a current teacher," Illingworth said. "Upon her going through the books and the accounting software, (she) couldn't find any of the current year's bank statements, so (she) got in touch with the bank and got copies.
"Once we got those, we looked through the January statement and we realized we had a problem."
The statement included charges at area bars and lingerie stores and for airplane tickets and hotel charges, Illingworth said.
They appear to go back at least through 2008.
School officials said they informed police of the charges on Aug. 5.
The former assistant director of the school, Madori Presley, was removed from that position but is a teacher there, Illingworth said. Presley has denied knowledge of the charges, Illingworth added.
Meadowcroft declined to comment when contacted Thursday by the WTE.
The Cheyenne Police Department confirmed an investigation is ongoing but would not release documents tied to the investigation because it is not complete.
Meadowcroft is not listed by name in the filed report, Cheyenne Police spokesman Sgt. Rob Dafoe said.
He added that he is unable to confirm or deny whether she is involved in the investigation. But he said no charges have been brought against her.
The investigation could be lengthy because of the auditing process and the time period involved, Dafoe said.

Shoshoni woman sentenced in district embezzlement in Wyoming

FROM THE STAMFORD ADVOCATE. COM  -


A judge has sentenced a 50-year-old woman to five years of supervised probation and ordered her to pay about $32,000 in restitution for taking money from a Fremont County school district.
Dstrict Judge Norman E. Young last week also gave Beth Wintermore, of Shoshoni, a three to five year suspended prison sentence.
Wintermore was an accounts payable clerk at Fremont County School District 24 from 2002 to March 2010.
She was accused of using school credit cards for personal use, including buying airline tickets so she and her daughter could attend a Jonas Brothers concert in New York in 2007.


Wintermore pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a credit card and forgery.