What proves malicious intent in misappropriation case?
If we cannot know the intent at the time of the misappropriation because it was covert, can we use these surrounding circumstances to imply malicious intent legally or is this just my wishful thinking?
Here's the story: I was an active PTO volunteer. Our school PTO went dormant (not dissolved) for 3 years as the officers resigned and we had no meetings. I was never an officer but when all officers resigned they closed PTO. I by agreement of members present at last meeting remained active in my role before and all during the dormant period, but by myself I could not BE the PTO and I had no official contact with other former members. I simply continued my job to raise funds for the day we would have an active PTO again. It was discussed that the PTO bank account had no inactivity fees and that money would sit in the dormant account until a new PTO formed to take it over--they compared it to what they'd done when this PTO had formed off the old one from years ago after a period of inactivity. My job was sole coordinator of our PTO fundraiser which involved children bringing in items for which we received payment from an outside source (boxtops). I never saw or handled the funds, I only turned in the Boxtops to the outside source for them to mail the PTO the checks, which arrived at the school address. The last meeting of PTO described that that money would sit dormant in the bank account until someone had an interest in starting up a PTO again. After 2 years I twice solicited the principal to send out a flyer I created to start a PTO and she refused to do so. No explanation. I let it drop as I figured I'd just continue raising $ to be there when we finally got PTO active again. I did have sit down conversations with the principal about what we could use the $3000 in accumulated money for if we got PTO active. She discussed it with me, but never told me any of that money had been spent while PTO was dormant. PTO bylaws state the treasurer ?shall pay out funds only as authorized by this organization." Our treasurer and president and secretary had all resigned. No meetings = no authorization of the organization--wouldn't that, legally, be so?
Now 3 years later I discover the $3000 is missing as we've finally started a new PTO.
The money was spent 2 ways. First, the school principal took $1000 in checks written to PTO (a separate 501(3)c) and deposited them instead into the school district account. There was no endorsement of the check over to the school. The money was spent on a school program. Second, $2300 was written in a check drawn on the PTO bank account signed by the former treasurer of the PTO who had resigned 6 months before writing the check to purchase items for the students that PTO had never prior authorized. In fact the money spent wasn't yet in the PTO bank account when PTO became dormant. It was deposited months later from my fundraiser. She made a unilateral decision to make the purchases and her name had remained on the account at the bank who probably didn't know she'd resigned or that the PTO was dormant.
At this point I am alleging misappropriation, even though funds went for things at the school, it was an abuse of power and violation of fiduciary duty to convert funds from PTO to school and spend $ without authorization of the organization of PTO. To prove all elements of the crime, I am looking for malicious intent.
Help me understand, have I found it or not? Please read on.
Here's how we found out this $ was spent. The school had an entirely separate fundraiser to benefit a local charity and asked parents to write checks payable to PTO. Since I knew we had no PTO (not many parents knew this since it'd been so long I think many assumed we had a PTO though they'd never been involved) I asked the principal why were checks to be written to PTO? Was there a new PTO formed I'd not known about? I was at first excited to get involved. But the written reply I got was there's no new PTO she just told me the former treasurer could still write checks from the PTO account so after funds were raised the PTO treasurer would write one check for the charity for which funds were raised. I was surprised to hear the treasurer was active with what I thought was a dormant checkbook. Another parent--formerly active in the old PTO told me she knew the treasurer had written other checks through the years but didn't know what for. So I raised the question among other parents--hey, what's going on with our PTO account? We needed accountability and together we pushed for reforming PTO to lay open the books. The public meeting was organized with the principal and the former treasurer taking charge immediately and stating that debate would be limited to 5 minutes to speak, one chance to talk because so many people (60) had shown up for the meeting. (NO vote taken to do this) Reading of the bank account proved only a few hundred $'s left of the $3000 raised while PTO was dormant. I asked my 1 question: where's the $3000? The first and only answer given was the Principal and treasurer stood up and accused me of having redirected the checks from PTO to the school district account at the source--the outside entity that write the checks. They pointed a finger and said only the coordinator (me) could do that. (I'd used my chance to speak, so could not defend myself.) To everyone at that meeting that explained what had happened to the money. The principal said it went to the school, and she rightfully spent it. No mention was made of what the other $2000 had been spent on. (I couldn't ask since I'd already spoken) But the treasurer stated that the only thing she wrote checks for was items like this charity fundraiser--earmarked incoming $ shuffled through the account with her writing one check back out. Trouble is, both answers to 'where is the $3000?' were blatant lies. I redirected nothing and that was not the only thing the treasurer wrote checks for.(Does this prove malicious intent only here at these false accusations and cover up or can it legally also imply malicious intent at the time of conversion of the assets? THAT is my legal question.)
It went further: Because of the false accusation, our credibility was shot and they looked clean as a whistle. We later obtained copies of cancelled checks and bank ledgers to prove this and we tried to bring the truth to light (directly and responsibly--we didn't get ugly in any way.) But we were censored off the school social media page, called a ***** and said we were 'off our meds,' blocked from posting, the group was made secret and renamed admittedly to hide it from us (it's in black and white print). And we cannot get the truth to come out.
We approached one school investigative authority who after interviewing no one but the accused sided with the principal and treasurer stating they saw no malicious intent since the money didn't go into their own pockets (but legally misappropriation doesn't have to go into your pocket, does it?)
They completely ignored that the alleged perps falsely accused me, hid facts, and violated PTO bylaws. (Why did the principal concoct a lie pretending the checks were written to the school when all she had to do was tell the truth and say she used PTO funds because the school had need and the PTO was dormant? Does this imply malicious intent or not?) Additionally we can prove a several month delay in the principal cashing the first check she stole. Legally, can we imply this suggests she knew it was wrong and was hesitating? Every other check went to the dormant PTO within a few days. The first check went missing only after I'd asked the principal to solicit for a new PTO because we needed to decide how to spent that $3000 sitting dormant. Can we legally imply she was alerted to unsupervised money and chose to take it because she knew it wouldn't be noticed, implying malice through covert actions?)
The former Treasurer never admitted writing any checks outside the shuffling of funds until an auditor proved she had. Then she pleaded 'it was for the kids, so what does that matter?' and they ignore the bylaws that say it wasn't authorized for her to unilaterally decide what to spend that money on.
So with this information, have we legally proven malicious intent and misappropriation or is it just wishful thinking?
