2 school treasurer cases similar, but only 1 was charged
One resigned, walked away a free woman; the other ended up in jail.
Two high school treasurers. Two theft allegations. Two very different outcomes.
In August 2015, police accused Cathleen Spring, former treasurer of Bak Middle School of the Arts, of stealing $66,000 from her school. But after mulling the case for a year, prosecutors declined to press charges. She resigned and walked away a free woman.
Less than a year later, police accused Terri Miller, former treasurer of Palm Beach Gardens High School, of stealing $7,200 from her school. This time prosecutors decided to charge, and Miller ended up in jail.
It’s a contrast that has educators across Palm Beach County scratching their heads since the outcome of the Bak Middle School case came to light this month.
Many teachers and parents were shocked by the news that State Attorney Dave Aronberg opted not to charge Spring. Not only had school district police concluded that she stole more than $66,000 from the school safe over three years, they said she admitted to signing the principal’s name on a check and charging personal expenses to a school credit card, according to police documents.
“Either the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office needs seeing-eye dogs trained in forensic accounting, or Spring is very well-connected,” William Fay, a Get more news every day about Palm Beach County schools at the Extra Credit blog. former principal of Banyan Creek Elementary, wrote this month in a Palm Beach Post letter to the editor.
In di smissing the evidence against Spring as “circumstantial,” the State Attorney’s Office wrote in September that it would be difficult to prove the detective’s conclusion that Spring stole the $66,000 in school money that vanished from the school’s safe.
“In essence, the state would have to prove a negative, that no one else but Cathleen Spring could have stolen the money,” Assistant State Attorney Timothy Beckwith wrote in a memo explaining why the office wouldn’t prosecute the case.
What Beckwith didn’t mention is that — according to police — Spring had admitted to other acts: signing the principal’s name on a $7,433 check and using a school credit card to buy two pairs of boots and to cover part of the