Former Boston head of faculty pleads responsible to embezzling practically $40,000 of public cash

Faculties

Naia Wilson embezzled cash from New Mission College in Hyde Park and used it to pay for all-inclusive holidays for herself and her associates.

Naia Wilson, the previous head of New Mission Excessive College in Hyde Park, pleaded responsible to misusing practically $40,000 at school funds to pay for holidays for her and her associates. She is pictured exterior the college in 2016. David Ryan/The Boston Globe

A former Boston Public Faculties head of faculty pleaded responsible to misusing practically $40,000 in public cash on issues like all-inclusive private holidays in federal court docket Wednesday.

Mattapan resident Naia Wilson, who was head of faculty at Hyde Park‘s New Mission College from 2006 to 2019, pleaded responsible to 1 rely of wire fraud, the Massachusetts U.S. Legal professional’s workplace mentioned in a press launch.

Wilson, 60, was charged Aug. 1 primarily based on allegations that she embezzled cash from the college between 2016 and 2019. She did this by secretly requesting faculty checks in different individuals’s names, fraudulently endorsing the checks, after which depositing them in her checking account.

In whole, Wilson stole $38,806 in public funds. A few of that cash went to pay for 2 all-inclusive holidays to Barbados for herself and her associates.

Wilson’s legal professional beforehand mentioned that she admits what she did was incorrect. He characterised her actions as a “modest lapse in judgment.”

New Mission is a pilot faculty, which suggests directors are given most autonomy over the college’s funds and spending. Federal prosecutors began investigating Wilson on the identical time that an unbiased audit flagged New Mission College for slipshod recordkeeping.

Boston Public Faculties Superintendent Mary Skipper, who was not working on the district when the embezzlement occurred, beforehand thanked the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace for investigating Wilson.

“The Boston Public Faculties takes its accountability as a steward of public funds very severely,” Skipper mentioned. “…Since these incidents, the Boston Public Faculties has carried out extra inside protocols and procedures to forestall a state of affairs like this from occurring once more.”

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court docket Decide Allison Burroughs scheduled Wilson’s sentencing for Jan. 9, 2024. The cost of wire fraud supplies for a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail, as much as three years of supervised launch, and a fantastic of as much as $250,000.

However, so long as a choose approves Wilson’s plea cope with prosecutors, she’s going to solely serve as much as 90 days in jail, be topic to 24 months of supervised launch, and solely need to pay again as a lot cash as she stole.