UGA Greek Life Embezzelment

[ASTalumna06]

What in the actual F?! Sticky notes? Blank checks? No budget? Zero oversight? Are you kidding me?

In early July, a report of theft was filed with the UGA Police Department. As police began interviewing members of the Greek Life Office (GLO) and Evans’ family, other officers, along with the university’s Internal Auditing Division, sifted through a decade of bank statements, receipts, checks and expenses. The investigation revealed that Shamp, Assistant Greek Life Director Elizabeth Pittard and other staff never set budgets or tracked expenses, with “misplaced trust,” often relying on verbal confirmation from Evans or numbers written on sticky notes.
.....

Pittard told investigators Evans would sometimes write the available funds in the Panhellenic Council account on a sticky note and leave it on her desk. Evans would tell Pittard the PHC “broke even” when they discussed funds after sorority recruitment, according to UGAPD documents.

The July 29 IAD report said Shamp failed to provide “any form of monitoring procedures over the financial activity of GLO.” There were no budgets for the organizations managed by the GLO, and no mechanism to monitor and investigate unusual activity.

Blank checks Shamp and Pittard signed were later found to have been made out to Evans. Neither supervisor reviewed bank statements — Shamp told police she simply trusted Evans, whom she worked with for almost 20 years.

Bank statements also listed “a large number of purchases” from stores such as T.J. Maxx, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Big Lots, Target, Kroger, Sam’s Club, Walmart and various department stores totaling about $156,000 that “appear to be unauthorized” on the IFC, PHC and UGA Miracle accounts.
.....

Evans made 323 ATM transactions from the PHC account, 361 transactions from the IFC account and 64 transactions from the UGA Miracle account. Of the 748 ATM transactions, 713 were for the maximum amount of $600. Video files from Synovus ATMs indicate Evans made multiple cash withdrawals from the Tate Plaza Synovus ATM, just a short walk from the GLO in the Tate Student Center.
......

Mason Black, assistant director of the GLO and adviser to the IFC, was not an authorized check signer on any accounts, but he told investigators he shared his purchasing card with students who wanted to make IFC-related purchases, and did not review the purchases.

[lake]

I'm always interested (and amazed) when I read stories about embezzlement cases because it's always the same story over and over again: A trusted employee and absolutely no oversight by anyone in the organization. This happens all the time, whether it's a business, church, non-profit, whatever, it's always the same scenario.

What I want to know is why the so-called Director was allowed to "retire" and the so-called Assistant Director was allowed to "resign"? Why weren't they both fired?

[thetalady]

Originally Posted by lake

What I want to know is why the so-called Director was allowed to "retire" and the so-called Assistant Director was allowed to "resign"? Why weren't they both fired?

AMEN!!!! They should both have been fired immediately. I wish they could be prosecuted for dereliction of duty. I just hope the school can get back some of the embezzled funds.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by thetalady

AMEN!!!! They should both have been fired immediately. I wish they could be prosecuted for dereliction of duty. I just hope the school can get back some of the embezzled funds.

They can probably sell the cars for some money. The remodeled house maybe. Looks like most of it was just p!ssed away on Starbucks and crap.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

Looks like most of it was just p!ssed away on Starbucks and crap.

... and lottery tickets

[Sororitysock]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

... and lottery tickets

I feel like a gambling addiction was possibly the primary reason she started and one of the reasons for continuing was a belief that she would eventually win big and pay it off without anyone finding out. Something similar happened at a company I worked for right after college. The company, lets call it Williams Widget Works, often received payments made out to WWW instead of the full company name. One of the accounting employees created his own company called WWW, and used it to open a new bank account for his business. Then he would help himself to some of those payment checks that were made out to WWW and deposit them to his own business account. He was eventually caught and blamed his gambling addiction, and because he attended church with the founders, they fired him but didn't prosecute him. We learned a few years later he'd stolen from another employer, and that one wasn't anywhere near as forgiving and neither was the jury.

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by Sororitysock

I feel like a gambling addiction was possibly the primary reason she started and one of the reasons for continuing was a belief that she would eventually win big and pay it off without anyone finding out.

Agreed. It seems like gambling debts aren't an uncommon situation when you read about various embezzlement cases. I'm sure there are cases where the gambling came first, which led to embezzlement to get access to more money, and cases where the embezzlement came first and gambling looked like a way to get a large amount of money fast to pay off the embezzled funds. Either way, people just get deeper and deeper into a hole and they can't stop gambling or embezzling because the two are linked.

I am profoundly shocked that there wasn't tighter scrutiny in place at UGA. I'm a department chair at a large state university, and this could just never happen. For purchasing cards, we have to reconcile monthly statements and upload receipts in a online storage system, our purchasing office conducts random purchasing card audits that are highly detailed (there is one employee for whom this is her ONLY job), budgets are closely monitored by the accounting office, etc. We don't have handwritten "blank checks" or department debit cards. I've also directed a number of large federal grants, and the university scrutiny there is also lock-tight. Our assigned accountant monitored our expenditures closely, as did I as the PI on the grants, and we were in frequent communication.

Same thing for my House Corp. Board service -- the co-treasurer and I always send each other receipts before we approve any check the other co-signer entered.

I just can't believe that this went on like this for so long. Absolutely mind-boggling and really sad. My best friend (and Sorority sister) is the President of another institution in the UGA system...I won't ask her about any confidential information, which she would not share anyway, but I'm also sure their purchasing practices oversight has been ratcheted up to much higher level.