Woman, 58, Admits Stealing $38K From Preschool Program: Feds

EAST HAVEN, CT - Following a forensic audit that found serious irregularities and then ousted in 2018 from her East Haven Board of Education role as Little Jackets Program director, Cathy Finkle has pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $39,000 from the program for preschoolers, according to the US Attorney.

Finkle, 58, pleaded to one count of wire fraud related to the theft from the child care program, prosecutors said Thursday.

Beginning in January of 2000 until November of the year she was fired, the FBI investigation found Finkle, who had access to the Little Jacket Program’s bank accounts and received tuition payments on behalf of the program, took “more than $38,000 in tuition payments” in the form of money orders and cash, money paid for tuition to the program by families, federal prosecutors said, and “diverted the payments for her own benefit,” prosecutors said in a media release.

Out on $50,000 bond, Finkle faces up to 20 years in prison when she’s sentenced in early May and must pay $38,554.50 in restitution, the US Attorney’s office noted.

Her husband, John T. Finkle III, a East Haven board of education member in 2018 who voted against referring forensic audit findings to law enforcement, pleaded guilty in a $3 million fraud scheme in 2019 and was sentenced to serve two years in federal prison.