The former chief financial officer of the Berkeley County, South Carolina school district was indicted this week on fourteen counts of embezzling public funds and one count of forgery.
The indictments – announced on Thursday by S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson – allege that Brantley Thomas, former CFO of the Berkeley County School District, “caused public school funds to be wired from a BCSD account directly into a personal bank account belonging to Thomas and another person, whereby the funds were then converted to personal use.”
Thomas also allegedly made multiple payments on his personal credit card (and multiple deposits to his personal bank account) using district funds.
The 61-year-old educrat is also accused of forging an invoice in order to make a personal payment to a credit card account appear to have been made to a legitimate vendor.
All told, Thomas is accused of embezzling nearly $460,000 of taxpayer funds between 2001-2011.
Prior to his indictment by Wilson this week, Thomas was indicted on twenty federal charges stemming from his alleged conversion of $382,252 worth of refund checks into cashier’s checks for his personal use beginning in 2012.
That’s more than $840,000 worth of embezzled money … that officials know about.
Oh, and while Thomas was allegedly robbing taxpayers blind, he was collecting an annual salary of $130,000 from them.
In addition to his role in Berkeley County, Thomas is the former chairman of the S.C. Association of Governmental Organizations (SCAGO) – a group that ostensibly exists to promote “financing and investment opportunities” on behalf of government-run schools in the Palmetto State.
Critics contend the organization exists to bypass a state law regulating investments by political subdivisions of the state.
Thomas resigned as the leader of this group back in February.
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