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N-Y Band Boosters Thief Sentenced
By: WOUB Staff reports
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ATHENS — A Nelsonville woman will have to pay back $50,000 to a local school district’s band boosters and spend nearly five years in prison for taking the money.
Anna Hembree, 40, was sentenced by Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge George P. McCarthy on Thursday on charges of grand theft, tampering with records and four counts of forgery, all felony charges, according to the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office. The charges brought a total sentence of four years and ten months.
Hembree was found to be laundering money from 2014 to 2017, using money meant for official band boosters business. The money passed through her personal financial account and the Nelsonville-York Band Boosters account, for which she was the Treasurer, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Hembree was convicted of making illegal withdrawals and illegal deposits in the boosters account. This included Hembree taking more than $71,000 from the account and depositing $65,000 back into the account during the summer of 2017.
“The Band Boosters, and ultimately the kids who are band members at Nelsonville-York, ended up being the ones most effected by Hembree’s actions,” Prosecutor Keller Blackburn stated in the release.
This case was investigated by the Nelsonville Police Department with follow up investigation conducted by the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office.
A correction was made to this article. A previous version incorrectly referenced how Hembree used the money from the band boosters account.