Ex-Worker Pleads Guilty to Stealing Donations to Club

The former business manager of a D.C. school for emotionally disturbed elementary students pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing $30,000 that had been donated to send chess club members to a national tournament.

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Sandy Jones, 40, told U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts that she raided the Moten Center chess club's coffers repeatedly for her benefit, writing unauthorized checks to herself, forging signatures, using a school debit card at ATMs and withdrawing cash at bank counters.

Jones, who declined to be interviewed, pleaded guilty to felony fraud. She could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and fined as much as $90,000.

In April 2003, the Anacostia school's chess club was struggling to raise money to attend a national tournament in Nashville. Members sold hot dogs and candy, but they were a few thousand dollars short of what they needed as the tournament approached.

On April 29, 2003, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher chronicled the club's struggle to make it to the May tournament. Readers responded by donating more than $72,000, many times what the club needed for its trip, school auditors later determined. Most of that money was eventually "stolen, embezzled, misappropriated or misused," school auditors found.

Moten administrators had deposited the donations in the school's student activity fund. A recent investigation by The Post documented that the student activity funds at Moten and at many other public schools in the District are poorly managed and easily squandered or plundered. Across the city, the funds collect up to $6 million annually from sports events, vending machines and activities.

Principals are responsible for safeguarding the funds. However, Moten's principal in 2003, Herbert A. Boyd, was distracted and spending time away from school caring for his terminally ill wife, he said. That left Jones, as business manager, in "complete and absolute control" over the account, school auditors determined.

Soon after the chess club returned from Nashville, Jones began stealing leftover donations, according to court and audit records. Her thefts continued undetected until fall 2003, when the principal phoned SunTrust Bank and learned that $4,000 was left in the student activity fund, records show.

Boyd said he notified school security and the police and urged them to review video from cameras at the ATMs where chess club money was taken. Instead, the investigations languished. An anonymous tip a year later prompted a new investigation. By then, however, some important evidence had disappeared.

Four years after the chess club's money was stolen, Jones entered a plea deal with prosecutors and agreed to repay the club $30,000, according to court records.

Jones, who told the judge that she works at a bank, is scheduled to be sentenced in February.