ST. LOUIS — A Missouri Baptist University (MBU) employee embezzled around $107,000 by using her position as the university’s controller from 2009-2012, according to an internal audit and subsequent investigation which led St. Louis County prosecutors to charge her with the crime, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Melinda Okai, 48, of O’Fallon was charged Nov. 9 with stealing more than $25,000, the newspaper reported. The thefts included various schemes, Creve Coeur police said, and led to the procurement of at least $107,406.39 between December 2009 and May 2012. She was promoted to controller in late 2009.
The newspaper reported that Okai used two strategies to steal from the university, both of which she learned after her husband had been a student there, according to court documents.
The first involved executing fraudulent refund checks, which are issued when a government educational loan exceeds the amount of charges from the university. The university also allows students to obtain emergency loans for up to $1,000, which are credited to their accounts in anticipation of receiving loan proceeds, according to court documents.
She executed numerous such loans on her husband’s account, but never credited the loans to her husband’s tuition accounts, the Post-Dispatch reported. She was listed as the responsible billing party for her husband’s accounts, so, all the checks were listed in her name and the checks were posted to her personal bank account, according to court documents.
Okai confessed the schemes to her employer, but refused to make a statement when Creve Coeur police arrested her, according to court documents.
Her bail has been set at $20,000.
The current MBU Board of Trustees is not elected by the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC). MBU is among ministries that the MBC is seeking to restore through litigation, and there is an MBC-elected board in place chaired by Jim Plymale, director of missions, Franklin County Baptist Association.
As for ministries directed by MBC-elected boards of directors, John Yeats, executive director, said, “The Missouri Baptist Convention has stringent accounting principles and oversight in place for its ministries. Even so, news of this type saddens us and spurs us to redouble our efforts to ensure that the financial resources Missouri Baptists entrust to the MBC and its ministries are invested with the highest degree of integrity.”
Plymale said it appears to be an isolated incident.
“It is worth noting that this was discovered by their own accounting personnel,” Plymale said. “The lady was terminated and some additional safeguards against such actions in the future have been put in place. Insurance should cover the financial loss to the college.”