Couple sent to prison for bilking South Meck High booster club for cars, cash and trips
A husband and wife who bilked the South Mecklenburg High School booster club out of almost $240,000 then fraudulently obtained COVID-19 business loans to hide their tracks are going to prison.
U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn on Monday sentenced Charlotte CPA Anthony Sharper to 30 months and ordered him to pay more than $310,000 in damages. His wife, Deana Sharper, received 21 months and must pay a judgment of almost $240,000.
Anthony Sharper, 42, had previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud, making a false statement to a financial institution, engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property, and tax fraud.
Deana Sharper, 47, pleaded guilty to one county of wire fraud.
The pair will begin their sentences at a later date after being assigned to a detention facility.
Their sentencing closes a narrative arc in which the Sharpers went from the lead actors in an inspirational success story to convicted felons who lived lavishly off the booster money from one of Charlotte’s best known public schools.
The website of a Florida nonprofit that serves the homeless formerly described how the couple used the group’s training to go from sleeping in a minivan with their children to entering college together and launching successful careers.
“The program was AWESOME for our family,” Deana Sharper said in her account of the family’s rise from near financial ruin. “We learned how to manage our money, create budgets for our household, and save properly.”
Instead, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte say the couple slowly took charge of the booster club’s finances at South Meck and leeched its accounts for years, the Charlotte Observer earlier reported.
They wrote themselves checks for phony reimbursements, ran up personal expenses on the club’s debit and credit cards, and burned through club funds with expensive meals, Charlotte Hornets tickets and a trip to London
Anthony Sharper attempted to hide the thefts with $236,000 in COVID-19 relief loans, which he received for the club and his accounting firm using fraudulent applications, prosecutors claim. He spent the bulk of the loan money on himself.
The couple resigned from the booster club’s board in 2020. Other club leaders later discovered a series of “irregular transactions,” which were reported to the club’s bank.
Hornets tickets and Ruth’s Chris
According to their 13-page indictment in May 2021, the Sharpers played the long game. They gradually gained influence and control over the booster club’s affairs to the point that by 2019, they were the only authorized signatories on the checking account.
Over a three-year period starting in 2017, the Sharpers wrote more than $100,000 in checks to themselves from the account for fraudulent reimbursements. They also used the club’s credit and debit cards to run up thousands of dollars in personal expenses in six states as well as during a trip to London, the indictment shows.
In some cases, according to the indictment, their raids on the booster money grew increasingly lavish — $5,000 for Hornets tickets; almost $850 on meals at Ruth’s Chris; more than $20,000 in cash and ATM withdrawals. Anthony Sharper later doubled down, using at least $20,000 in booster club money to pay down the credit card charges he and his wife had run up, prosecutors say.
In 2020, Anthony Sharper filed for federal pandemic-related economic relief for both the booster club and his own accounting firm. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, his three applications relied on fake revenue, payroll and employment numbers, leading to Sharper receiving almost a quarter of a million dollars in aid from Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
That May, the indictment claims, he used $40,000 of the loans on South Meck’s playing fields, painting the offices of the school’s coaches, and purchasing sports equipment. He spent an additional $25,000 to pay down the outstanding balance on the booster club credit card.
Much of the rest he used for unlawful business or personal expenses, prosecutors say, including almost $20,000 to buy a 2019 Honda Civic.
In May 2020, Anthony Sharper emailed booster club members a screen shot showing a $150,283 balance in the club account.
In fact, according to the indictment, the actual amount was $522.07.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 10:52 AM.
