A view of Madison Elementary. InkFreeNews photo by Dan Spalding.

Staff Report

WARSAW — A Warsaw woman is facing multiple charges for alleged misuse of school PTO funds.

Stephanie Ann Yentes, 39, 1188 N. Santorini Drive, Warsaw, is charged with fraud on a financial institution, a level 5 felony; theft, a level 6 felony; and two counts of forgery, both level 6 felonies.

On March 2, a Kosciusko County Sheriff’s office detective received a report of theft from Madison Elementary School PTO. The detective spoke with PTO members, who advised of suspicious transactions on the organization’s bank account.

The detective obtained banking information for that account from the bank and compared that information with the treasurer reports for Madison School PTO. Upon initial investigation, the school’s PTO bank account appeared to be missing $24,363.32.

On March 17, the detective interviewed Yentes, who was the treasurer for Madison PTO during the time the funds disappeared.

Yentes provided her records and a copy of the bank account statement in question. Yentes provided a treasurer’s report indicating that Madison School PTO should have $25,773.67 in the account, along with a hand written note indicating the account only had a balance of $1,410.35 at that time. 

Yentes told the detective she would use cash raised during fundraisers for personal use and not deposit the funds into the organization’s bank account.

She was asked about several checks that were written on the bank account to her husband. Yentes explained that she would write the checks to her husband, sign the checks, cash the checks and then use the funds herself.

Yentes admitted to exerting control over $24,363.32 that was intended for use by Madison School PTO between January 2017 and March 2021 while she was the treasurer for the organization.

While examining bank records for that account, the detective found two PTO checks written to Yentes’ husband that were cashed/deposited into the personal account of Yentes at another bank.

On March 22, the detective was again contacted by representatives of Madison School PTO, who had discovered an additional $20,117.02 missing from the organization’s funds. 

PTO representatives found that Yentes was writing checks to herself for reimbursements and for cash. Madison School PTO reps noted that Yentes would write in the memo line what the reimbursement was for and then would actually purchase those items by charging the items on the organization’s credit card. 

Madison School PTO completed a full audit from January 2017 through March 2021 and found that a total of $44,480.34 had been stolen from the organization’s bank account.