Embezzlement up to $180,000 hits Webberville’s youth athletic association

The Ingham County Sheriff’s Office is investigating embezzlement of as much as $180,000 from the Webberville Junior Athletic Association.

“A large sum of money was embezzled over five years by one individual who was on the board,” the lead investigator, Deputy Sheriff William Vincent, said. “Anywhere from $30,000 to $180,000 was taken.”

The Webberville Junior Athletic Association is an independent nonprofit organization that provides local school students with extracurricular athletic activities. These include volleyball, softball, baseball basketball, t-ball, soccer and football.

Multiple board members identified the suspect as Tiffany West, the association’s treasurer for five years until recently, when board members discovered that the organization’s bank account had been virtually emptied.

Efforts to reach West for comment were unsuccessful. Sources said West confessed in writing to the board in a letter that included an apology.

One association official spoke on the record.

Jacqueline Sholty, the girls volleyball commissioner, said West “has been taking money from us for the last five years.”

She said that in May, the association discovered that the apparent suspect “had two accounts open for the program, and we were only supposed to have one. We did some investigating, and it turned out that there was no money in them.”

Sholty was aware of at least some of the money that was missing.

“I always have a record of how much money my program brings in through concessions,” she said.

“By April, volleyball had accumulated $6,000, and it was all gone. And that’s just volleyball. All the money for the entire association was gone.”

“We have monthly meetings with our board, including the president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, plus all the commissioners for each sport,” Sholty said.

“We found out that the treasurer had been taking this money for five years. At each of these meetings, the treasurer is supposed to present a financial report. All those years she had been telling us that we had the money we were supposed to have,” she said.

“We have relieved her from her position, and now we are trying to rebuild our programs, because we have nothing. She took every penny. We use that money to provide the equipment, to provide the officials, the activities that we all love, and now we are out here begging our community to help us or we are not going to be able to offer these sports to our children,” she said.

“She also wrote a letter admitting what she had done and apologizing to us,” she said. “We are seeking charges, and there is an ongoing investigation.”

“This isn’t something we are trying to hide,” Sholty said. “We need to be open and honest with our community that it wasn’t just us wronged, it was all of them as well,” she said.

Sholty said the association held a public meeting May 31 to explain to what had happened and answer questions. She said an investigating officer attended.

An association board member, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the misappropriation was discovered when “we were trying to access funds and we were rerouted by the bank,” she said

In May, the source added, association officers discovered that the bank accounts had been emptied. Suspicion fell on West, who had direct access to the accounts. Parents were informed of these facts at the community meeting last month.

Association President Tracy Buchannon and other officers went to the bank and found only $11.65 remaining in the account, another source said. “They explained all this at the community meeting,” she said. “It’s no secret.”

“This is terrible,” the source said. “They do all the sports up to middle school, and some up to high school. They won’t be able to run their programs this year.”

“Hundreds of kids are affected,” Sholty said. “This has been offered since I was in high school in 2005. There are a lot of youth that have grown up in the athletic association, and parents who volunteer.”

The association is trying to make up the lost funds through fundraising. “We need $600 for softball fees, that’s what we’re trying to raise now” she said.

“Our goal is to raise $5,000 before fall season, because when school starts, we have everything from kindergarten to eighth grade football. The kids benefit so much from it,” she said.

“We are doing fundraising right now to support our summer sports. We are trying to raise money to pay our referees and game officials and also field maintenance. Going into football season, we will need money for equipment like safety pads.

A community garage sale is scheduled June 27–29 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day at 11495 Bell Oak Road.

Deputy Sheriff Vincent that once the investigation determines the exact amount of money that was taken, charges will be brought.

He said the Sheriff’s Office is still seeking search warrants to collect more evidence before giving it to the prosecutor.

“I would hope to conclude within the next month or two. It might take longer,” he said.

This kind of crime is very uncommon in Ingham County, he added.

“An embezzlement of this size hasn’t happened since I’ve been on the force,” he said.

— VICTOR WOODDELL