Former director of senior center in Belleville charged with embezzlement

The previous director of the Sugar River Senior Middle, charged Friday with a number of counts of theft for utilizing the middle’s financial institution and bank card accounts to do every little thing from purchase a manicure to stave off foreclosures of her house, instructed police the thefts have been pushed by a “mixture of greed and desperation,” in accordance with a legal criticism.

Amanda M. Meade, 41, of Palmyra, was fired from the middle, which serves the village of Belleville and the cities of Montrose and Exeter, in June 2021 after officers for the middle started to suspect she had used heart funds for private use. 

An investigation by Belleville police and the state Division of Legal Investigation discovered that from 2015 to 2021 — over almost her complete tenure as director — Meade had taken $136,575 from senior heart coffers, together with greater than $62,000 in further paychecks she had written for herself from 2015 to 2018. She used the middle’s accounts and bank cards to pay for holidays, make mortgage funds to stave off foreclosures and automobile funds to maintain her minivan from being repossessed, and purchase things like clothes, sneakers, and web and cellphone service, in accordance with a legal criticism filed in Dane County Circuit Courtroom.

The alleged unauthorized purchases continued up till April and Might 2021, simply previous to her dismissal, the criticism states, when she used the middle’s bank card to purchase tickets on United Airways. 

Meade is scheduled to seem in courtroom on Feb. 16. 

In all, Meade is charged with two counts of theft over $10,000, one depend of theft in a enterprise setting over $10,000, and three counts of unauthorized use of an entity’s figuring out info. The theft prices every carry most sentences of 10 years of mixed jail and prolonged supervision, whereas the remaining counts every carry as much as six years.

Based on the criticism:

In an interview with DCI Brokers Scott Leck and James Pertzborn in Might, Meade didn’t deny the improper use of the senior heart’s accounts however stated she was shocked on the quantity. She instructed Leck and Pertzborn she feels “horrible” and “by no means knew it was this a lot cash.”

She stated she obtained used to the “life-style” and took the middle’s cash “out of a mix of greed and desperation.” Throughout a visit to Eire that was bought partially with the middle’s cash, she instructed the brokers, she thought-about staying in Eire and never returning to her life within the U.S.

Meade stated when she was employed as director in 2014 she had no thought the right way to do the middle’s payroll, and when she requested for assist was instructed to “determine it out.”

She instructed police she started writing herself further paychecks in 2015 when she unintentionally printed an additional one, then determined to maintain and money it. She justified stealing from the middle, she instructed the brokers, as a result of she labored lengthy hours with out extra time pay, which made her really feel as if she have been being taken benefit of.

There was additionally monetary stress at house, she stated, when she and her now former husband confronted foreclosures. They divorced in 2016 and he or she re-married in 2017. 

Meade instructed the brokers she had “stopped fascinated by it” when utilizing the middle’s cash, and when she made purchases on her laptop, used no matter bank card was on her display screen. She stated she had saved the middle’s bank cards on her laptop and “simply clicked” when reaching the fee portion of a transaction.

She additionally stated she had opened and closed totally different financial institution and bank card accounts for the senior heart so she might begin with a clear account if the middle’s board of administrators ever requested to evaluation monetary knowledge.