Ex-financial officer spent more than $200,000 of Columbus YMCA funds on herself, cops say
A longtime Columbus YMCA worker serving as chief financial officer blew more than $207,000 of the organization’s money on personal purchases through Amazon, Walmart and Netflix, plus season tickets to the Chatt-A-Hoots and River Dragons and a trip to Universal Studios, police said.
That’s what financial crimes investigators have found so far while tracing Donna Fiquett’s expenditures between July 2020 and July 2023, Sgt. Jane Edenfield testified Monday in Columbus Recorder’s Court, where the 57-year-old suspect faced one count of felony theft by taking.
Edenfield said Fiquett as CFO had two YMCA credit cards, one a Capital One card for Walmart, in her name, and the second a Sam’s Club Mastercard in the YMCA’s name.
Fiquett also had control of a YMCA bank account at Synovus, and used funds from that to pay off the Capitol One card, the sergeant said.
The illicit charges on the Capitol One card totaled around $116,000, and those on the Mastercard came to about $91,000, said Edenfield, who said the exact estimate of the losses was $207,408.65.
Fiquett could produce no invoices or receipts for the transactions, the officer said.
She said the YMCA fired Fiquett in August, and got a September audit from the accounting firm Robinson, Grimes & Co., which confirmed the suspected misuse of funds. Police got a warrant on Oct. 3, and U.S. Marshals arrested Fiquett at her home in Russell County on Oct. 13, she said.
Fiquett had been working for the YMCA for more than 10 years, Edenfield said.
Fiquett was represented Monday by LaGrange attorney Tyler Moffitt, who asked Judge Susan Henderson to set a bond that would permit his client’s release from jail.
Prosecutors objected to any reduction in bonds, saying authorities had to track Fiquett down to arrest her out of state, 10 days after her warrant was issued.
Henderson sent the case to Muscogee Superior Court, and left Fiquett’s bond at $207,000, based on the amount of money she is alleged to have stolen.
