MASON, Ohio — A woman has been convicted on theft and telecommunications fraud charges after she stole thousands of dollars from at least two Mason booster programs.
According to the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, 44-year-old Laquita Miller organized a one-time fundraiser for the Mason Football Boosters back in 2021; she was given the booster's banking information to deposit the funds raised from the fundraiser.
Court records show Miller pleaded guilty to the charges on Thursday. Her sentencing does not yet appear to be scheduled.
Then, in 2024, Miller used that banking information to make nine different unauthorized withdrawals from the booster account to pay off personal credit card expenses, the prosecutor's office said.
In all, she stole $6,158.52 from the Mason Football Boosters.
During the same time period, Miller was serving as the treasurer of the Mason Cheer Boosters. After police determined Miller was likely the person who'd made the withdrawals from the Mason Football Boosters, representatives of the cheer boosters began reviewing that organization's financial records.
That search revealed that Miller had also made at least $29,868.25 in unauthorized withdrawals from the Mason Cheer Boosters' account, the prosecutor's office said.
Police were not able to fully determine exactly how much money Miller may have stolen from the cheer boosters, however, because Miller was the treasurer who maintained the group's financial records, and those records were not complete, the prosecutor's office said.
"Miller was involved in several parent and booster organizations and appears to have created financial or other havoc in every one," said Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell in a press release.
Fornshell said booster organizations heavily rely on volunteers and can operate without much oversight, making them susceptible to thefts like this.
"There are, however, a handful of fairly simple steps that can be taken to minimize the opportunity for and severity of this type of internal theft," Fornshell said. "I urge all booster, school, church, charitable and other community organizations to implement appropriate financial procedures so that they aren't part of the headline in yet another case of this type prosecuted by our office."
Fornshell said his office will be hosting a one-hour training for leaders of these types of organizations on November 19 at 6 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Warren County Prosecutor's Office. The training, called "Protecting Your Organization from Internal Theft," will also include a question and answer segment.
For more information, or to RSVP for the training, you can contact the prosecutor's office at 513.695.1325.
