Library Director Charged With Taking $50,000

Library Director Charged With Taking $50,000 Former Stevens Memorial Library boss Cheryl Paul-Bradley indicted

+ click to enlarge News staff photo by Damien Fisher The Stevens Memorial Library + click to enlarge TGN file photo Cheryl Paul-Bradley Damien Fisher News Staff Writer ASHBURNHAM  The former director of Ash­burnham’s Stevens Memorial Li­brary is now under indictment for allegedly stealing $50,000 from the library. Cheryl Paul-Bradley, 54, was indicted by the grand jury convened at the Worcester Superior Court on two counts of forgery, two counts of uttering false checks, and three counts of fraud or embezzlement by a municipal official. She is alleged to have diverted more than $50,000 in checks intended for the library. Paul Jarvey, spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said Monday that no arraignment date for Paul-Bradley has yet been scheduled. Paul-Bradley is listed as a Troy, New Hampshire, resident. Her number is unlisted and she could not be reached for comment on Monday. Paul-Bradley resigned from her position of 30 years in 2014, after an audit of the library turned up financial red flags. Auditors from Worcester ac­counting firm Greenberg, Ro­sen­blatt, Kull & Bitsoli found a number of discrepancies in Paul-Bradley’s record-keeping system including missing receipts from vendors, paying in cash, having an Athol Savings Bank account opened in her and a former trustee’s name, as well as having more than $30,000 cash in envelopes at the library, according to their report. Paul-Bradley alluded to the issues in her resignation letter, which was accepted by a unanimous vote of the library trustees. “Due to certain personal reasons and medical issues, I write to inform the Trustees that I am resigning as director of the library,” she wrote in her 2014 resignation letter. After the audit was done in 2014, the Massachusetts Inspector General’s Office got involved, investigating the matter. It was the Inspector General’s Office that brought evidence to the grand jury for the indictments. Library Trustee Paula Dowd, said Monday that the Stevens Memorial Library is not in any financial trouble as a result of the past alleged thefts. “We’re in very good shape,” she said. Dowd declined to comment on the indictments, saying that Paul-Bradley is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. “It has to go through the courts,” Dowd said. “We’re just going to have to see what happens.” The 2014 audit was not the first time questions were raised about Paul-Bradley’s handling of library finances. She was placed on administrative leave in March 2013, and Town Treasurer Paul Pollastri investigated alleged accounting irregularities. Paul-Bradley remained suspended for four months until public outcry pressured the trustees to reinstate her. Pollastri’s report is said to have uncovered questionable expenses charged to the library, and improper mileage reimbursements, but those issues were cast aside as the report was deemed as biased by some of the trustees. At the July 2013 hearing during which Paul-Bradley was reinstated, then-Trustee Joseph von Deck, called the town investigation a farce. “The problem is the careless record keeping,” von Deck said in 2013. “… but if sloppiness were a crime, most of the world would be behind bars.” Reached Monday night, von Deck maintains that the 2013 investigation did not present enough facts to point to wrongdoing. “It was smoke and mirrors,” he said of the 2013 report. The information from the 2014 audit, which uncovered the separate account and the $30,000 in cash, was not in the 2013 report, he said.