May 18, 2007 By The 3 min read

A preliminary hearing for a Nemacolin woman facing theft charges has been continued until Thursday. The woman was arrested by state police on a felony charge of theft following allegations that she stole more than $20,000 from the Jefferson-Morgan School District while employed there as a cafeteria manager.

Robin L. Leonard, 41, was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Glenn Bates on May 9 on one felony count of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds. According to the criminal complaint filed in Bates’ office, police allege that Leonard failed to make required payments totaling $20,467.13 to the school district’s bank account during a one-year period between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006, while she was employed as a cafeteria manager by the company identified in the complaint as Nutrition Inc.

Police said the company had a contract with the school district to manage the district’s cafeteria. The school district’s cafeterias share a central system called “Caf? Terminal” that connects all of the cash registers together and provides a complete report of everything that is sold and the amount of money collected, the complaint states.

Leonard’s managerial responsibilities included handling all of the money taken in at the cafeteria on a daily basis and depositing the money into the school district’s bank account.

She also was required by Nutrition Inc. to submit daily sales and income reports to the company, police said.

In March 2006, the district’s business manager, Jennifer Foringer, discovered that the bank account was low in funds, and when Leonard was asked for records, she repeatedly said the records were not available, the complaint states.

An accounting firm was hired at the end of the 2005-2006 school year to conduct an audit of the cafeteria account, at which time the $20,467.13 was found missing, police stated.

The accounting firm reported to police that records from the Caf? Terminal system and the reports sent by Leonard to Nutrition Inc. were used to determine the cafeteria’s income, and this amount was then compared to the bank deposits made by Leonard, police stated.

The accounting firm determined that $15,406.13 in cafeteria income never was deposited into the district account, and an additional audit of the district’s vending machine account determined that $4,755 also was missing, the complaint states.

Police officers questioned Leonard in March, and after showing her findings from the audit, she admitted to taking the money, the complaint states.

Following her arraignment, Leonard was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond.

Leonard’s preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Thursday.