UK Edition
Girl Scout leader arrested after allegedly stealing £20,000 of cookies
Police in Kentucky have arrested a Girl Scout leader after she went on the run, having allegedly stolen $26,000 (£20,000) worth of Girl Scout cookies.
Leah Ann Vick, 26, is accused of masterminding an unconventional fraud earlier this year – picking up boxes of cookies from the “cookie cupboards” in numerous counties, and then disappearing with them.
“We’re still looking into what she did with them – we have a detective on the case,” said Haleigh McGraw, marketing director for the Girl Scouts of Kentucky’s wilderness road – an organisation representing 10,000 girls, in 67 counties.
“Did she use these cookies as payment? Has she got some left that we can recover? We’re trying to work all this out.”
Ms McGraw told the Telegraph that Vick worked alone in the eastern district of Kentucky, and so would have been able to carry out her crimes unnoticed for many weeks. Receipts also show that she collected cookies for her troop from multiple counties, further covering her tracks.
“Cookie season”, Ms McGraw said, is from January to March and provides the Girl Scout troops with valuable funds. The girls also learn money management skills, selling the cookies at stalls and door-to-door.
“We have extensive background checks on all our scout leaders, and one-on-one interviews, but there were no red flags with her,” she said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Ms McGraw said that scout leaders would occasionally miscalculate the amount they would sell – but a fraud on this scale was “unique”.
“It’s quite a lot of money for us,” she said. “It will definitely have an impact. But we are trying to take measures so that the girls are not affected.”
Vick is currently being held in Pike County detention center, on an arrest warrant issued by Clark County. A court date is yet to be set, a spokesman for the jail told The Telegraph.