Terri L. LaRiccia, who was a bookkeeper and accountant at the PAST Foundation on Kenny Road, is suspected of committing payroll fraud

Terri L. LaRiccia, who was a bookkeeper and accountant at the PAST Foundation on Kenny Road, is suspected of committing payroll fraud to take most of the money. Investigators also think she used the foundation's credit cards to pay her personal cell-phone bills and buy a used car. The theft occurred over at least nine months in 2009 but wasn't discovered until late last month.LaRiccia was fired Feb. 15, days after police were called to investigate."We are just devastated by it. As a small nonprofit, we're the classic target for this kind of bad behavior," said Annalies Corbin, PAST Foundation founder and executive director. "It's always hard in a small organization to find out an employee you trusted was untrustworthy."
Corbin said regular financial updates to foundation officials had been falsified to hide the theft.PAST shares a building with Metro Early College High School on the Ohio State University campus. Its anthropologists work with K-12 schools, and the organization has helped to design and teach units at Metro and Linden-McKinley STEM School, which is the Columbus district's science, technology, engineering and math-focused high school.Corbin discovered 11 fraudulent purchases on foundation credit and debit cards. Ten of those were withdrawals at automated-teller machines in the Grand Victoria Casino in Rising Sun, Ind., totaling nearly $3,000.The casino has video footage of LaRiccia using the ATM, according to documents police filed in Franklin County Municipal Court seeking a warrant to search her house.
Another $1,000 credit-card purchase was made at the Ricart Used Car Factory; shortly after that use, Corbin told police she saw the bookkeeper driving a different car.
LaRiccia would not comment for this story. She has not been charged with a crime.
She worked part time and did not have benefits, but police records say LaRiccia paid herself even when she was out sick. She had worked with PAST since 2008.
Corbin said she could not give details on other ways LaRiccia siphoned money using payroll. She said public money, grant money or money the nonprofit received through contracts wasn't involved; the stolen money came from an operational rainy-day fund.
Because the foundation has office space on campus, Ohio State University police are investigating."Like any other financial crime case, you have to build the investigation. You'll look at records, you'll conduct interviews, prepare investigative material. These do not move very quickly," said Police Chief Paul Denton.The foundation is changing its payroll operation to make sure this doesn't happen again, Corbin said.