Saturday May 3

Theater supporters unmoved

Residents question whether employees committed crime or just kept sloppy records

By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer

Community support for suspended employees of the Palo Alto Children's Theatre remains strong despite the release this week of police affidavits that suggest they may have embezzled city money.

Many residents, including several council members, spoke out strongly for the three theater employees at the center of the police investigation, although members of the usually vocal nonprofit Friends of the Palo Alto Children's Theatre did not return repeated calls for comment this week.

"On the first read, it seemed like a witch hunt," Council Member Jack Morton said of police affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants unsealed at police Chief Lynne Johnson's request Wednesday afternoon.

"I'm not persuaded," Mayor Larry Klein said Friday. "There's no indication of criminal intent in there."

Detailing the police department's reasons for launching its criminal investigation into alleged financial crimes at the theater, the affidavits filed by Detective Agent Jason Jenkins suggest that four employees - theater director Pat Briggs, costume supervisor Alison Williams, box office program assistant Richard Curtis and the late assistant director Michael Litfin - used traveler's checks intended to reimburse them for expenses incurred on trips with theater children to instead embezzle city funds.

In preliminary investigations, Sgt. Michael Yore determined that since 2001, Briggs and Litfin deposited more than $40,000 of city checks and cash advances into their personal bank accounts and withdrew a slightly smaller amount in traveler's checks, of which $10,460 remains unaccounted for - in part because the theater employees never submitted receipts to the city.

But the question of whether the employees were simply sloppy accountants or criminal embezzlers remains undetermined.

Most theater supporters remained fully loyal to the employees.

"I still feel the same way about the people involved, no question in my mind," said Leon Kaplan, who as the city's director of arts and culture supervised the theater for 24 years until he retired in 2004. "I still don't see anything criminal, I see it as careless."

The new question for many residents this week was why city administrators did not try to figure out minor accounting discrepancies or insist on receipts being filed.

"This seems to be a matter where it would've been better to call in the city auditor rather than the police," said resident Mac Clayton, whose son participated in several theater productions.

On Thursday, City Manager Frank Benest acknowledged there had been a breakdown in enforcing city policies, saying there had not been "aggressive follow-up" because the theater is such a beloved institution.

But residents still questioned why discrepancies in accounting were not investigated before the criminal investigation was launched with the theater's brief closure Jan. 24.

For instance, when the city advanced theater employees funds for trips with participating children, reimbursements to the city were not always for identical amounts, police noted in the affidavits.

Morton wondered why no one on city staff thought to try and find out why.

"No one stops to ask the question: 'Are these relatively small differences explainable?' " he said.

And Kaplan said that in his experience, operating expenses were carefully documented.

"On our normal business activities, not including the trips, Pat would turn in detailed receipts of expenditures she made out-of-pocket that she sought reimbursement for," Kaplan said.

He said the city budgeted for the trips and that subsequent expenditures "usually were exactly equivalent."

The police department said this week that the investigation remains ongoing.



E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.