Charged with forging checks from Montz, Country Cottage
The president of two civic associations in Montz was arrested for the second time on May 14 and charged with theft from the organizations.
Christopher Kennedy, 36, of 110 Airline Court in Montz, was the president of both the Country Cottage Civic Association in Montz and the Montz Civic Association.
On April 30 he was arrested and charged with nine counts of forgery, theft of $300 to $500 and theft under $300 after allegedly forging and cashing several checks out of the Country Cottage organization’s bank account.
On May 14, he was arrested a second time and charged with theft of goods over $500 and five counts of theft of goods under $100 for allegedly forging and cashing checks from the Montz civic organization’s bank account.
Moreover, Montz Civic Association secretary/treasurer Michelle Langley said that she believes the thefts were premeditated.
“The activity was even more shocking because he started writing falsified and forged checks within two months of opening (the Montz Civic Association’s) account,” Langley said. “That first check that he wrote without my signature was to the (Country Cottage) association so it must have been premeditated.
“This has been going on since 2007, obviously it was premeditated. He took this position…and once we got this money he was immediately writing bogus checks for the other association.”
Kennedy was arrested after members of each organization became suspicious of his activities and alerted the authorities, according to Capt. Pat Yoes of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Of the most recent arrest, Yoes said that Langley was the one to realize there was a problem after Kennedy was arrested for stealing money from Country Cottage.
“The treasurer was concerned since (Kennedy) was president of the Country Cottage association as well,” Yoes said. “There were a number of checks that were written to (Kennedy) or were written to cash.”
Langley said that she became suspicious of Kennedy after asking him about some of the organization’s financial records.
“There were a couple of red flags that came up. One being that he had all the records as far as the check book and bank documents – I was the counter signer on the account but I didn’t even have the account number,” Langley said. “The second flag came up when he made a comment to me at one point…that he didn’t have any receipts…he was just so nonchalant.”
After hearing about what happened at Country Cottage Civic Association, Langley said she decided to investigate.
“Without Chris knowing…I went to the bank and asked to see the activity. I had reason to question the activity,” Langley said. “When they pulled it up I almost died. We had $10 left in our account…we started with about $2,700.”
Langley said that the organization had hardly spent anything since their initial start-up costs.
“We had start-up costs which we used the first two checks for and I signed those. I was aware of those and they were legitimate,” she said. “There were no more purchases that the association made…we did not even buy refreshments for our meetings.”
Langley said that members of the Montz Civic Association felt more than just shock at Kennedy’s arrest.
“They were all shocked…and we feel very betrayed,” she said. “He was not only our president, but we considered him a friend.
“Now we want to see him punished because he’s betrayed all of our trust and what he did was wrong and illegal and he has tarnished our reputation.”
Langley said that the club is worried about what this arrest could mean for the organization’s future.
“We rely on contributions…who is going to be open to opening their checkbooks to make contributions after the poor handling of our money?” she said.
She said that despite the concern, the members decided to continue the association because they have a lot of projects they want to see done and they want to help the entire community of Montz. They will be holding a meeting in the next few weeks to elect new board members.
“I know that my members are very disappointed and they feel very betrayed, but they do want to reconvene,” Langley said. “We will have much more transparency in our practices in handling money in the future.”
Susan Badeaux, vice president of the Montz association, said that she was also shocked by the news.
“I was highly surprised…I can’t believe this,” Badeaux said. “I think he should have to pay for the crime and pay back all the money to us and to Country Cottage.”
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