Fleecing the Flock

These stories pop up every now and then:

A former bookkeeper will be arraigned in Orange County Superior Court on Friday for embezzling money from a Tustin church by writing 154 checks to herself.

Elyse Marie Kennedy, 37, of Santa Ana has been charged with 154 felony counts of forgery with sentencing enhancements and allegations for aggravated white-collar crime. Theoretically, Kennedy could get probation, prosecutors say, but she faces a sentence of anywhere from 16 months to 107 years in state prison if convicted.

Prosecutors accuse Kennedy of stealing more than $129,000 from the accounts of St. Paul's Episcopal Church when she was the bookkeeper between 2007 and 2009. She wrote checks to herself from the church's bank accounts without the knowledge or consent of church authorities, prosecutors say. [...]

Kennedy has been in custody since Dec. 27 in connection with the current case and a probation violation stemming from a 2005 grand theft conviction in Orange County, said Deputy District Attorney Sean O'Brien of the District Attorney's white-collar crime team, who is prosecuting the case.

Having spent some years in the church insurance business I can tell you there are lots of things that could have prevented this. For one thing, there should be two signers required on any church check over a certain amount of money, the lower the limit the better. That makes large withdrawals a lot harder to get away with.

Secondly, having an annual outside audit is always a good idea. Keeps everybody honest.

Thirdly, proper pre-employment screening would have caught the prior felony conviction and kept her out of the job.

Finally, churches are required to have some sort of board of trustees who are ultimately responsible for the financial wellbeing of the church. What were they doing all this time?

Churches tend to be very trusting, and that opens the door to the dishonest person. It also tends to make them pay too much for their insurance, and that's why I wrote this when I left the business to keep them from making dumb mistakes.