Florida Keys News - Key West Citizen
Sunday, June 7, 2009
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TIMELINE OF EVENTS

1994

Monique Acevedo hired as Adult Education and Career Department office aide. Over years, promoted to clerk typist to executive secretary to office manager

2005

Acevedo replaces John Andola as coordinator

2007

August: Finance Director Kathy Reitzel warns Schools Superintendent Randy Acevedo his wife, Monique, used her school district credit card, P-card for short, to buy seven personal airline tickets. He wrote a check and said he would counsel her.

2009

January: Monique's P-card statement shows two-year XM satellite radio subscription. She claims it was for MARC House, but canceled. Finance employees discover it's active and in name of Acevedos' son, Wade, prompting them to check all her purchases.

6: Monique claims to have surrendered her P-card to the superintendent

10: Faked MARC House letter allegedly written to justify XM

13: Reitzel confronted Randy about "horrific situation" with Monique's purchases. He gave her MARC House letter

17: Reitzel and Acevedos met to discuss situation. Monique produced letter defending purchases and attributing them to her department's programs: cosmetology, General Equivalency Degree, English for Speakers of Other Languages and MARC House

27: Monique's P-card used to charge $500 deposit for EF Institute for Cultural Exchange Inc.

Unknown: Reitzel reports situation to Florida Auditor General's Office and School Board Chairman Andy Griffiths

MARCH

2: Reitzel refuses to sign letter saying she suspects no fraud in 2008-09 budget

3: Monique resigns

5: Florida Auditor General's Office investigates.

6: Griffiths takes financial records to State Attorney's Office to investigate

10: Board votes to reprimand Randy

12: Board hires private investigator and attorney to represent its interests

16: District releases financial records, showing clothes, groceries, furniture and other items

18: District reveals Monique used purchase orders as revolving reimbursement fund

19: Key West High School Principal John Welsh asks about missing ninth-grade fundraising money collected by Acevedo, the class sponsor

20: State auditors begin probing cash-only cosmetology fees

23: District releases Randy's statements, revealing he once charged Medifast diet meals and routinely charged monthly Key West Rotary dues, for which he repaid the district. State Attorney's Office subpoenas Keys Federal Credit Union for Acevedos' records.

24: Board votes to cancel all P-cards; hires Richard Fechter as private investigator; board member John Dick questions how Acevedo spent $250,000 federal grant for failed Even Start program

25: State Attorney Dennis Ward launches multiagency probe

26: Griffiths hints superintendent should resign. State auditors brief state attorney investigators on audit findings

30: State Attorney's Office and Florida Department of Law Enforcement meet with School Board attorney Richard Collins, served subpoena for Auditor General's Office to provide copies of Monique's receipts

APRIL

1: United Parcel Service store in Peacock Plaza subpoenaed records for shipments Monique made to her parents' North Carolina home

2: North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agrees to send agent to their home

3: Board agrees to hire internal auditor and headhunter to find candidate

5: Governor's office said he cannot remove elected officials until after a conviction

8: North Carolina investigators search Acevedo's father's church in Creedmoor

10: Dick gives FBI and prosecutors records showing Monique's P-card purchases in August 2008 mirror Randy's re-election campaign expenses, over which she was deputy treasurer; Acevedo's predecessor, John Andola, said she collected cash-only fees even when she was his assistant

11: Prosecutors say they want to question Acevedo and anticipate interviewing her husband

15: Investigators depose adult education employees Kristina Hicks, Rosea Josephson, Mindy Vinson, and Carmen Moran

20: Investigators depose MARC House Executive Director Diane Flenard and Sylvia Gonzalez, adult education registrar at Key West High School, and subpoenas Monroe County Teachers Credit Union for records of Randy's re-election campaign accounts.

22: Investigators depose cosmetology instructor Nadine Toriello, owner of All About You salon

23: Investigators depose Debra Castellano, adult education data entry clerk and cosmetology instructor

Kempel also calls Jackie Chapman, GED instructor. She describes the process of collecting money in the Upper Keys Adult Education Office and sending it to Key West.

24: Kempel calls former Adult and Vocational Education Director John Andola on the phone and asks him about Acevedo's collecting cash from students and customers who get salon services from the cosmetology students at night. He says Acevedo handled the money and he had no knowledge of its fate.

27: Prosecutors reveal charges are pending against Acevedo. The State Attorney's Office also decides to set the amount of money allegedly stolen by Acevedo at $180,334 based partly on statute of limitations. Kempel calls Andrea Hooper, wife of Vocational Coordinator Mark Hooper; J. Naklicki, and Karla Valenzuela, all of the Marathon Adult Education Office to ask them about the process of collecting money from students, etc. They say they collected money and dropped it off in Key West for Monique Acevedo.

28: Kempel meets with Mark Lindas, MARC House workshop manager. He tells them Acevedo asked him for blank MARC House stationery in late January-early February, which he printed out from his work computer and gave to her, according to Flenard. Kempel also meets with Key West High School Assistant Principal Kristina McPherson at the high school.

Kempel calls Deputy Superintendent Mike Henriquez, who tells him that he had supervised Acevedo from September 2008 and that he told Acevedo to contact him if she had any problems. Henriquez said he never accepted money from Acevedo and never knew of the cash-only policy.

29: Warrant for Acevedo's arrest is reviewed by Wilson, signed by Judge David Audlin. Wilson calls Nathan Eden, Acevedo's attorney to make arrangements for the superintendent's wife to turn herself in. Eden tells Wilson that Acevedo would not be available to turn herself in until May 19. Wilson declares the superintendent's wife to be a fugitive from justice. Kempel calls North Carolina Bureau of Investigation (NCBI) and asks agent to check the home of Acevedo's father to see if Acevedo is there.

30: Monique's father, senior Pastor Thomas Jenkins, tells the NCBI agent that he just missed his daughter. She is on her way back to Key West. Kempel cuffs Acevedo in sight of cameras after her husband, Randy Acevedo, delivers her to the jail.

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Let me get this right...

This timeline appears to have been posted twice, but I'll keep asking this until I get an answer. On March 19, Mr. Welsh "asks about missing ninth-grade fundraising money collected by Acevedo, the class sponsor" and by June, he's potentially out of a job?

Maybe it's just...

A coincidence?

And there's more...

A well respected, 7 year guidance counselor at MHS was fired. Why? Because he outwardly supported R. Acevedo's opponent in the 2009 election. Word is that this counselor's position is not being eliminated, but will be filled by someone who has never been a counselor.

Of course

Why not? He should be out!!! How dear he be honest?? Mr. Welsh, If you are reading these, I am sorry, your ethics gets in the way of you not grabbing some cookies out of the cookie jar. I wish you the best and you were always there for me during my high school years.
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