Leaders of a Kentucky chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters say that amid dealing with deficits and job cuts, they did not notice hundreds of thousands of dollars disappearing from its coffers over the past year as part of an alleged embezzlement scheme, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bluegrass this week sued a former office manager accused of embezzling $435,837 since October 2008 by forging the signatures of two board members on scores of checks. The losses, amounting to more than a third of the charity’s assets, were detected by its bank.

“I can’t speak to what happened. I have no idea,” said Dale Suttles, who was recently promoted from director of development to chief executive officer. “There are checks and balances that had been in place for years. They did not let us down until we employed certain people.”

Read an article from The Chronicle’s archive on ways to detect fraud.

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