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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe former financial coordinator of a charitable foundation operated by Carmel-based women’s fraternity Zeta Tau Alpha has been charged in federal court with eight counts of wire fraud, accused of embezzling about $450,000 from the organization.
Christina Short, 43, of Speedway, was indicted Monday in federal court in Indianapolis, where she is accused of devising a scheme to defraud ZTA, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Josh Minkler said in a written statement.
If convicted, Short would face up to 20 years in prison on each charge and payment of full restitution.
Short was responsible for receiving, depositing, and accounting for individual donations.
“The evidence show that she stole over 800 separate cashier’s checks and money orders,” the indictment says, and deposited into her own bank accounts.
Short attempted to cover her tracks by altering the foundation’s donation logs and financial ledgers, the indictment says. After a financial institution discovered the embezzlement and notified the foundation in November, “Short admitted that she had taken ‘a few’ money orders over the past week,” leading to her firing and the investigation that produced the indictment.
The evidence in the indictment specifically notes eight instances in which Short is accused of making wire transfers of money orders to her personal bank accounts from October 2012 through May 2018. Each of those money orders was for $500 to $1,000.
Short had worked for the foundation since 2002, according to the indictment, mostly as a part-time dedicated staff member responsible for receiving, recording and depositing donations to the foundation.
The evidence shows that in some cases, Short wrote her own name over Zeta Tau Alpha in the “pay to” line of money orders. In other cases in which the donor had not filled in the “pay to” line, relying on ZTA staff to do so, she simply filled in her name or one of several aliases, then deposited them into her account, according to the indictment.
Zeta Tau Alpha has more than 20,000 student members in chapters at more than 150 colleges and universities. Its philanthropic arm uses donations to fund scholarships, leadership and educational opportunities for students and alumnae as well as to promote breast cancer awareness and education.
ZTA also has more than 200,000 current alumnae members associated with more than 200 chapters.
This case was jointly investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Carmel Police Department.
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for the record, i believe that a “women’s fraternity” is technically know as a “Sorority”
Their website would disagree with you “ZTA is a national women’s fraternity that aims to intensify friendship, foster a spirit of love, and build a purer and nobler womanhood in the world.”
Zeta Tau Alpha was established as a fraternity to distinguish itself from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men’s fraternities, called sororities. Zeta Tau Alpha has no “brother” fraternity.
Kappa Alpha Theta, first Greek letter fraternity known among women. I learned that during pledgeship in 1974 at Hanover. Founded by four women at DePauw.
Alpha Phi International Fraternity, Inc. was founded in 1872 by ten young women attending Syracuse University. We say “Our Fraternity.”
In the early 1900’s the IRS only acknowledged the word ‘fraternity’ in their tax codes so roughly the first 10 of the 26 national sororities are technically named ‘fraternity’.
Greek life is dying
Statistically, the top 10 sororities and fraternities saw a shrink from 09-15 and have begun to see growth again.
As colleges offer less and less for personal growth during the collegiate years, greek life (or at least the strong orgs who offer it) will continue to grow as it fills the void colleges have created by offering rock climbing walls instead of educating the entire student.
Greek life is not dying, fraternities and sororities which only provide a drinking space for students instead of a growth based experience are dying.
Greek life is needed to fill in the large voids colleges have created over the last decade as they only care about avoiding lawsuits…
“offering rock climbing walls instead of educating the entire student” – what an absolute garbage take