A “mass email” from Laura McGhee, of Brentwood, was sent on Tuesday to Brentwood School District family and friends asking for donations following a disappearance of thousands of dollars from the Brentwood High School PTO account, an anonymous source told 40 South on Tuesday.
The source confirmed that the amount missing — using the word “stolen” — is “more than $15,000.”
The PTO awards four $500 scholarships each year. The letter says three of the four winners this year weren’t able to redeem their scholarships and that the account balance, including Project Graduation, is in the negative. They need $1,500 by Thursday.
KSDK reported this story on Tuesday, saying they reached out to Brentwood Police and were told a criminal investigation is ongoing and wouldn’t go into more details about the case.
What happened to the post by Christine Jost? It brought up a lot of interesting information. Did 40southnews remove it? If so, I think I will stop visiting this site.
I can tell you guys exactly what and who and how this happened.
The PTO let a career criminal be in charge of the funds serving as the Treasure.
I rented my Brentwood Forest Condo to Tamara Jenkins and after only 4 months had her evicted.
When she was arranging the rent with me she had a big purse with two bank bags from WCCU in them. She explained that she was the PTO Treasure and that she “deposits” the concession stand funds regularly. As most of us know, the concession stand is all cash. I told her I had an account at WCCU, gave her a deposit slip and thought things would be fine.
They weren’t.
EVERY time she wrote a check it bounced. One was written on an investment account that her checking writing privileges were revoked. I did a police report which was just a joke. First I was told that I have to wait 10 days to give her time to make restitution. Then when I made the official report I expected them to go and arrest her.
Oh no.
They gave her even more time. And evidently she knew they would. Suddenly when the police said they would be going to arrest her she makes a deposit to my WCCU account – with a money order.
Who uses money orders? People with cash. Where did she get her cash? The concession stand.
I have a co-worker which will remain nameless, that said they compared Tamara’s reports during PTO meetings and how much was really in the account at the time. As an example, the last meeting she reported that the account had $3,000 in it. The statement shows there was only $14 in it.
If you look her up on case.net she has pages and pages of Judgments and evictions. She has been doing this for at least 20+ years. She’s a pro.
I warned the school district. The Superintendent totally thought I was a nut bag and brushed me off. The High School Principle did not. But, the issue that the PTO is a separate entity from the District made it impossible for the Principle to “order” that they look into this. He could only highly advise. The PTO President did nothing.
And then this happened. I am so sorry. I did try to stop this.
I cannot wait for judgement day for this low life.
Let’s assume that you and the PTO did its due diligence before entering into agreement with the perpetrator. How is it there were no red flags in her credit report?
When she rented from me I had her provide her credit report. There was no judgments. Police told me that she has two social security numbers also.
Like I said, she’s a professional.
Is it libel when you defame someone in writing, or slander? I can never remember. Whichever it is, this is just about a textbook example of it.
Ummm, it has to be untrue.
Well, I hope the PTO was able to raise enough funds to cover the theft, and are able to follow through with the scholarships. Maybe we could hear more on that.
Sounds like it came from the same Nigerian prince that promised me dollars millions in quick time! if I wired him dollars 2,500 at that time today!
Wow! Sad news for parents trying to support some good kids. Luckily its an easy crime to solve. Look at the bank account, who wrote what unauthorized checks to who? Arrest someone, case closed. That said I remember when former city manager Chris Seemayer went gambling with the city credit card. The board fired him, he was arrested then the mayor and several board members wrote glowing letters of support to the judge hearing the case. Only in Brentwood!
Good thing you’re on the case, Mr. C! There’s absolutely no other way that someone could have gotten the money out of the account, like withdrawing from the bank where the account is held, or authorizing electronic payments for a personal credit card, or fraudulent billing! Case closed! Way to go!
But seriously, I think there are quite a few of us who have kids in the BSD that will be watching this closely and keeping an eye out for any monkey business connected to this.
Mike, you’ve solved the caper. When you recover the money use it to make make the firehouse ADA compliant.