Ex-school official charged with stealing chess club funds

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A former school administrator has been charged with stealing $30,000 from an Anacostia grade school chess club whose run to the national championship four years ago captured the hearts of local residents.

Federal prosecutors filed information in U.S. District Court this week that charged Sandy Jones, a former business manager with the Moten Center Special Education School, with ripping off the money from the chess club’s bank account between May 2003 and November 2003.

Jones was a signatory on the account. According to federal court documents, she, “used the [chess club] account’s debit card to obtain cash from ATM machines; and wrote checks, payable to herself, and cashed them.” She also forged the signatures of other club officials on checks she cashed. Stealing about $250 at a time, Jones eventually siphoned $30,000 from the account, documents charged.

She could not be reached Wednesday, and an official at the school said she no longer worked there.

The Moten chess team was comprised of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students who had been removed from other elementary schools because of behavioral problems.

Before chess, the students couldn’t sit still in class, their volunteer coach Vaughn Bennett told The Examiner on Wednesday. The students were diagnosed with bipolar disorder or attention-deficit order, and labeled as too dysfunctional to learn, Bennett said.

But the students eventually learned to concentrate, often for hours. Their school grades improved and the team started to beat “regular” students. “Chess saves lives,” Bennett said.

When the city residents learned that the team wouldn’t be able to attend the National Scholastic Chess Championship in Nashville, Tenn., more than $70,000 in private donors poured in to the school and the team. The team of “special needs” students finished 33rd out of 64 of the nation’s top scholastic chess squads.

But the star-studded team dissolved after 2003, said Bennett, a former D.C. firefighter who still teaches the game in places that most people won’t go.

Bennett said he wasn’t sure what happened with the Moten Center teams. But sadly several of its former players have run afoul of the law, he said.

One of the students who managed to stay on the right path, Jon Allen Jr., 15, was shot and killed while standing outside his home two years ago.

Bennett was shocked to learn of the charges against Jones.

“With those resources, we could have kept the programs going, we could have kept the students connected to success, to let them see that they are champions, not just of a game, but of life,” he said.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

Advertisement