LITTLE RIVER, SC (WBTW) – A Riverside Elementary School employee was arrested after school officials began monitoring her involvement with money from an after school program, and reported possible embezzlement to police.
An incident report from Horry County Police says officers were called to investigate after the Riverside Elementary child care program director and school bookkeeper saw what they thought to be an employee stealing cash from a deposit bag on school surveillance cameras.
The report states Mandy Diana Bellamy, 28, of Longs, “showed an overwhelming interest in receiving the money from parents, and would always want to drop the money bag at the end of the work day.” After suspecting Bellamy’s actions were becoming peculiar, school officials reviewed surveillance footage from an afternoon Bellamy was to drop the child care program deposit bag at the bookkeeper’s office.
The video showed that Bellamy walked toward the office then stopped, sat in a chair and began sifting through the payments made by parents for the after school program, the report states. Bellamy can be seen setting one payment to the side, returning the other items to the bag and placing it beneath the bookkeeper’s door. School officials discovered the bag was missing $170 in cash and the receipt that coincided with that payment, according to the report.
The report details how school administrators began an audit of the payments and receipts to find several transactions, some Bellamy signed the receipt for, never made it to the bookkeeper. It’s believed Bellamy stole money from the child car program from mid-November through mid-December.
Bellamy faces one count of embezzlement of public funds $5,000 or more. She was booked into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center at 7:13 a.m. Thursday morning and was released about three hours later on a $10,000 bond.
