Former Portage Junior Miss Softball Treasurer charged with Fraud/Forgery
On April 22, 2022, Portage Police were dispatched to speak with members of the board for the Portage Junior Miss Softball league. The members reported that Kimberly Schmick had allegedly been stealing money and forging checks for the last 3 years. Kimberly Schmick was the treasurer for the Portage Junior Miss Softball and was in charge of all the finances for the league.
During the month of April 2024, the board’s suspicions arose about the finances of the league and they began to look into it. The board members decided that there was a need for a more detailed treasurer’s report because a couple of the bills had come back as “ past due”. The President of the Board stated they went to Centier Bank to get a detailed bank statement for the league and they were shown several checks that Schmick cashed that were not authorized. The League’s account required 2 signatures for a check to be cashed: the signature of the treasurer and the signature of the President or Vice President. However, according to court documents, the League President’s signature was forged on these checks. The board also found huge discrepancies from what the accounts should have had in them. According to a board member, Schmick had access to the main league account at Centier Bank, a gaming account at First Source Bank, but then had no access to a third account known as the “concessions account.”
According to court documents, one of the board members reported that, on April 14, 2024, they had confronted Schmick about this, and she denied everything. She was then fired from her position as treasurer.
During its investigation, the Portage PD observed a number of checks written for cash, which the league board member stated that checks written for cash would only be needed for a cash bank to use during a fundraiser event. After the event, the withdrawn cash, along with the earnings from the event, should have been deposited, but they discovered that this was not happening. A number of checks written for cash were marked on the memo line as paying for things like umpire fees, field workers fees, etc. But, these expenditures were actually paid for out of the concessions account that Schmick did not have access to. Therefore, these checks were fraudulent and Schmick was pocketing the withdrawn cash. In addition to the funds missing from the bank accounts, there was a large amount of unaccounted for and not deposited cash that had been collected, according to the court documents. These collections would have come from entry fees by the parent/teams, fundraisers, raffles, donations and sponsors. Additionally, there were charges on the League’s Menards business credit card that were not approved by the League and believed to be for Schmick’s personal use, according to court documents.
Based on the investigation of the records provided by the Portage Junior Miss Softball, the Portage PD estimated the amount of money stolen between August 2021- April 2024 from the Centier Bank account was approximately $177,318.41, and from the First Source account was $7,770. It was also estimated that the total amount of missing cash amounted to approximately $76,919. It was further estimated that the total amount spent on the League’s Menards Credit Card for Schmick’s personal use was approximately $8,601.32
On July 23,2024 , the Portage PD made contact with Schmick. She stated that she loved the kids in the league and that she “did wrong” even though she did not believe she took the amount the league was claiming. Schmick stated that she wanted to “do right” and “make this right” but was not admitting guilt. Schmick explained that she had a bad gambling problem. Schmick advised the guilt has been killing her.
Kimberly A. Schmick has been charged with:
Theft – Level 5 Felony
Forgery- Level 6 Felony
