EMBEZZLEMENT TO THE TUNE OF $1M BY MUSEUM EMPLOYEE

A Hollis woman and her three children (!) were sued for allegedly embezzling cash from the museum.   She and her children, Bunker, Kristen and Robert are faced a civil suit filed in Worcester Superior Court.

Peggy Kempton, 52 was the CFO of Fruitlands Museum in

Harvard

,

Massachusetts

for ten years. (She has since....

....been fired). She was given the responsibility for supervising the daily operation of the museum.  She was the only employee who handled check writing, banking and tax matters for the museum. 

Get this:  She is accused of leasing a museum-owned cottage for $1400/month not including utilities.  She made no payments on the lease (hmmm…wonder how this happened?) and she diverted checks from a museum bank account to pay for the utilities of this cottage she was “renting and never made a payment on”.  She also paid two of her children for work they ‘allegedly” did:  $18,598.59 for 1800 hours of work to one and $10,522.50 to another for 1000 hours of work.

She apparently worked there and embezzled for TEN YEARS! ).  Information about the accusations has been forwarded to the

Massachusetts

attorney general’s office for possibly criminal prosecution.  The museum has implemented “new procedures” (duh?) following Kempton’s departure. They are also having a forensic audit done to isolate the embezzlement damage.

This is from an article I read in The Telegraph, a

New Hampshire

newspaper, dated 9/20/08 and written by Hattie Bernstein.

IF YOU HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING MY BLOG AT ALL, YOU WILL KNOW THEY VIOLATED RULE #1 OF NOT LEAVING YOURSELF NAKED TO EMBEZZLEMENT:  NEVER HAVE ONLY ONE PERSON HANDLE CASH!!!!!