Sammamish woman arrested for embezzlement from high school booster club
Apr 14, 2016, 1:21 PM | Updated: 1:45 pm
A Sammamish woman has been arrested for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the high school booster club she was in charge of managing.
The arrest is the result of a yearlong investigation into the matter. The woman has not been charged yet as prosecutors are reviewing the case. She has been booked into the King County Jail for theft.
“It’s pretty tragic,” said Sgt. Cindy West with the King County Sherif’s Office. “There’s about 51 clubs this money was meant for. Instead of going to those clubs, it looks like it went into this woman’s bank account.”
The woman, 53, served as treasurer of the Skyline Booster Club from 2008 to 2015 and is accused of embezzling more than $107,000 from the club. At least, that is how much money detectives can allegedly prove was taken. Club members believe the loss is much more.
“Some of the booster club members started noticing that there were less funds than they expected in the account and they started investigating,” West said. “When they contacted her, she said she didn’t have any statements and abruptly resigned and wrote a check to the booster club for $31,500.”
“The booster club hired an accountant to go over their records and they believe there is about $200,000 missing,” she said.
The woman suddenly resigned from her booster club position in January 2015. She wrote the check to reimburse the club the following May while detectives were still investigating.
According to the King County Sheriff’s Office, detectives obtained warrants to search the booster club’s bank account as well as the woman’s and discovered a range of checks written from the club to the woman and her husband. Those checks were written between 2009 and 2014 and total more than $48,000. It is also believed by detectives that more than $59,000 in cash was deposited into the woman’s personal account — cash meant for the booster club.
“It is believed that those funds came from concession stands and cash donations,” West said.
While the booster club believes the total loss is more accurately around $200,000. Detectives, however, can only base their case on the bank records.
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