KY school official admits stealing $1.6 million, laundering money through a church
A former Kentucky school finance director stole $1.6 million by writing checks to herself and laundering the money through a church where she was treasurer, according to a court document.
Lesley Wade, also known at Leslie Cummins, pleaded guilty in federal court in Frankfort Tuesday to one charge of concealing money laundering and one charge of filing a fraudulent tax return.
Wade worked for the Franklin County Board of Education from August 2000 to June 25, 2019, when she resigned after coming under suspicion.
Starting in early 2011, and continuing until she left, Wade wrote unauthorized checks from the school system and falsified records and invoices to cover the checks, according to her plea agreement.
Wade’s access to record-keeping systems and her control over financial processes “allowed her to get away with this scheme for years,” the plea document said.
Wade also was treasurer at Leestown Gospel Church in Frankfort, which trusted her and gave her control over its financial management “with basically no oversight or internal controls,” the plea document said.
Wade used the church’s account in the scheme, putting money stolen from the school system into the account and then writing checks from the account to herself, according to the court document.
The one check covered in her plea deal was for $89,100. She deposited the check into the church’s account in January 2019.
The court record indicates prosecutors could have sought more charges against Wade. It says she took part in “numerous interstate wire communications” as part of the scheme, for instance.
Wade pleaded guilty to an information, which is a document that prosecutors use to charge someone instead of seeking an indictment from a grand jury.
Charging someone by information often means the person agreed to cooperate with the government and work out a deal to plead guilty before charges were filed.
The total loss Wade caused to the school system was $1,624,593.
Wade also filed tax returns that were false because she didn’t claim the money as income, underpaying the Internal Revenue Service by $315,677, according to her plea document.
That pushes the total amount of restitution in the case to $1.94 million.
The money-laundering charge against Wade has a top sentence of 20 years in prison, though her sentence is likely to be less under advisory guidelines.
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove scheduled Wade to be sentenced in September. She was released pending sentencing.
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 7:29 AM.
