A now ex-president of Simley Youth Football’s board of directors is accused of stealing more than $17,000 from the program over two years, using the funds to pay his car loan and do an asphalt driveway at his Cottage Grove home.
Jason William Bryant, 42, was charged this week by summons in Washington County District Court with three counts of felony theft. He’s scheduled for a Feb. 13 first appearance on the charges. An attorney is not listed in his court case file, and he did not respond to a message left for him Thursday asking for comment.
According to Simley Youth Football, Bryant joined its board of directors in 2016 and became board president three years later. In 2022, he became president of the program’s booster club. He left the role in June after the theft allegations were levied against him.
Asked to comment on the allegations Thursday, Simley Youth Football provided a written statement that said new board members “discovered a betrayal of our kids and our club by our former president. He breached not only his fiduciary duty to our organization, but he betrayed our kids for his own personal and financial gain.”
The football program has teams with kids in third through eighth grades from Inver Grove Heights.
According to the criminal complaint:
Inver Grove Heights police received a report in June of suspicious activity on the football program’s bank accounts, including one that was believed to be closed in 2021.
Board members had noticed that money had been transferred from a primary account to the purported closed account. They identified hundreds of unauthorized transfers and payments to various entities.
Board members suspected Bryant, since he previously had access to the bank accounts and was authorized to make purchases for the program.
In August, a board member created a spreadsheet to detail the suspicious transactions and transfers. One of the transactions was for $1,200 to an asphalt company and dated June 16, 2022. A police investigator spoke with the asphalt company and was told the transaction was a partial payment for work completed at Bryant’s home in Cottage Grove.
The investigator received search warrants for unauthorized transactions at a credit card company and bank. The credit card company identified two payments from the “closed” account: one for $748.13 in July 2023, the second for $565.67 about two months later.
The bank provided bank statements, billing statements and the credit card application, which was filled out by Bryant on Feb. 24, 2020. Payments to the bank could be tracked from the youth football program’s primary account to the “closed” account, and then to pay Bryant’s credit card bill, the complaint says.
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The investigator spoke with an employee of a credit card company in September and learned that Bryant had a car loan. Between July 2022 and July 2023, he made 10 transfers, totaling $7,053.20, for car payments, the complaint alleges.
Police executed a search warrant at Bryant’s home in September. Officers located credit cards in his name, documents related to the youth football program and checks made out to him. Overdue bills, including some that had been sent to collections, were also found.
The complaint says investigators determined Bryant stole $5,526.60 over the last six months of 2022 and $12,084.46 in 2023.
In the aftermath, Simley Youth Football said in its Thursday statement, the board “has worked to revamp the safeguards available to us in our bylaws, in addition to a complete club audit and hiring an independent accounting firm to assist us.”
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