For over thirteen years Scott Eaton the athletic director at
Northern Kentucky University was having affairs with his many girlfriends.
All the while he was
embezzling about $311,000 from the school and using the money to give the girlfriends cash
and buy them gifts.
Eaton, a husband and a father,
gave one of his five NKU girlfriends $2,500 a month in university funds for two
years but he stopped when the woman's husband contacted him.
He paid one lover's tuition
during their 13-year "on and off" affair, mailed Christmas gifts to
her last year and sent her e-mails early this year telling her he still loved
her, the woman told a criminal investigator working the case.
Eaton's mistresses included
at least four university employees and one student.
Eaton told investigators he
started that affair in 2000 and two more in 2008. He also said he had affairs
in 1998 - the year he was hired at NKU - and 2002.
She said she had been having
a sexual relationship with Eaton since 2000. She said she was aware he was
married but not that he was having relationships with other women.
He pleaded guilty last April.
He was fired in March 2013. Eaton's long trail of theft, deceit and betrayal
landed him a 10-year prison sentence.
To NKU's fault, no one was
paying attention to how he spent the university's and taxpayers' money. Eaton
realized the university was not keeping track of his spending.
Eaton began buying Kroger gift cards with his university credit
card and using them to buy other store gift cards to make purchases. Sometimes
he bought items and returned them for cash.
Over the next six-plus years, Eaton used his NKU credit card 183
times to buy Kroger gift cards for his personal use. He started buying them in
amounts of $2,125, then raised that to $3,135. By mid-2008, maybe because he started to worry about getting
caught, he started spending less on cards - $1,440 was a favorite amount – but
bought them more often.
By mid-2009, he was back up to $1,800. By 2011, it was $2,700,
then $3,600.
He was still buying them in amounts of $3,600 when he got caught
in early 2013.
Eaton had bought $262,106 in
Kroger gift cards for his personal use, according to an NKU audit.
The audit
tracked his illegal spending to a dozen retailers. All told, Eaton spent more
than $26,000 at Barnes and Noble and more than $8,000 at Kohl's and Best Buy.
NKU President Geoffrey Mearns
said the school has tightened its accounting and reduced the number of workers
who carry a university credit card.
After getting out of prison,
he is required to begin paying back the $311,215 he stole. (article)
Nonprofit Imperative gathers its information principally from public documents...some of which are directly quoted. Virtually all cited are in some phase of criminal proceedings; some have not been charged, however. Cites in various media: Featured in print, broadcast, and online media outlets, including: Charity Navigator, Vermont Public Radio, Miami Herald, National Public Radio (NPR), Huffington Post, The Sun News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Wall Street Journal (Profile, News and Photos), “Betrayal”, (a movie), NBC (on Charity Fraud…TBD), FOX2, ABC Spotlight on the News, WWJ Radio, Marie Claire, Ethics World, Aspen Philanthropy Newsletter, Harvard Business Review, Current Affairs, Charity Navigator, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, St. Petersburg Times, Board Room Insider, USA Today Topics, Accountants News, Newsweek.com, Responsive Philanthropy Magazine, New York Times, Portfolio Magazine, The Virgin Islands Daily News, NANKAI (China) BUSINESS REVIEW, National Religious Broadcasters newsletter, The Charity Governance Blog, American Chronicle, Palm Beach Post, Detroit Free Press, Oakland Press, Nonprofit World, Socially Responsible Business Forum, PNNOnline, Ohio Nonprofit Resources, Nonprofit Good Practice Guide, Nonprofit Startup Guide, Nonprofit Blog, National Coalition of Homeless Newsletter, Finance and Administration Roundtable Newsletter, MichiganNonprofit.com, CORP! Magazine, Crain’s Michigan Nonprofit, ncrp.org, PhilanTopic, Nashville Free Press, Nonprofit Law Blog, Seniors World Chronicle, Carnegie Reporter, Assoc. of Certified Fraud Examiners Examiner, msnbc.com, Worchester (MA) Telegram and Gazette, Carnegie Corporation of America, EO Tax Journal, Wikipedia: Non-profit Organizations; Parent: Wise Austin, Accountants News, Veterans Today, Answers.com, Far-roundtable, #Nonprofit Report, nonprofithelpnews, nonprofit news; National Enquirer, Northwest Herald, The HelpWise Daily, The #Nonprofit Report, Wikipedia (Nonprofit Organization), Answers.com, Nonprofits: On the Brink (2006) Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector (2011)
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