The Associated Press
Thursday, June 28, 2007; 11:51 PM
OGDEN, Utah -- A secretary who embezzled $1.12 million from a school foundation has advice for her former bosses: Hey, get better auditors.Not surprisingly, Schmitt Griffiths Smith is the same company that audits Emerald City, BTW!
Denise Aughney said her crimes would have been discovered years ago if someone would have looked closer. She pleaded guilty in April to theft, money laundering and forgery and was sent to prison June 7.
In an April 28 letter to the Weber School District, Aughney wrote: "I would hope that some things have changed and new policies are in place, that this is not so easily done again."
If auditors "had done their job this could have been caught during any of the seven years. I never changed any information during an audit to hide my crimes," she said in the letter, obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Aughney took trips to Las Vegas, Disneyland and Hawaii and purchased a Camaro and a Waverunner, among other items. She wrote checks from the Weber School Foundation to cover credit card bills.
Schmitt Griffiths Smith & Co., the firm that had conducted audits for the district, declined to comment."
Query?
Is anybody with a brain (other than Dorothy Littrell and us) watching the Boss Godfrey store?
Does anybody remember Arthur Anderson, Inc.?
"Think straight, talk straight" was Arthur Anderson's earlier, pre-Enron motto, before they became the embarrassment of the accountancy trade.
SGS & Co.'s recent motto seems to be: "No Comment."
Food for thought?
