June 18, 2012; Source: Orlando Sentinel
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In Winter Garden, Fla., Jo Ann Lacy Anderson, a bookkeeper for more than 10 Central Florida charities in, has taken a plea after defrauding her nonprofit clients out of more than $1.5 million. Among her victims was the Kimball Foundation, started by Edward Kimball, who is now 91 and a resident of an assisted living facility. According to Kimball, the bookkeeper wiped the foundation out completely.
There is a lesson here, since it does not sound as if the Kimball Foundation had a reasonable division of duties. Anderson was the assistant secretary and treasurer for the foundation’s board of directors while she also handled the books and had access to all the bank accounts. The foundation supported a number of other charities for victims of domestic violence, homelessness and hunger. Anderson says she did not mean to do it and borrowed the money to temporarily cover losses from her own businesses. –Ruth McCambridge
