BOSTON — A former member of the Saugus Board of Selectmen pleaded guilty to 18 counts of forgery, larceny, and other charges in connection with a scheme that embezzled nearly $1.3 million from the Boston Center for Adult Education, where he served as comptroller, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.
Mark Mitchell, 53, was elected to the board in 2015 and served until 2019, when he did not run for reelection in the wake of the fraud allegations surfacing. At the time, he faced calls from fellow board members to resign.
Now, Mitchell is facing an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to five counts of larceny by scheme, six counts of improper campaign expenditures, three counts of forgery, three counts of false entries in corporate books, and one count of publishing false or exaggerated statements, according to the statement. Mitchell was also ordered to pay an as-yet-undetermined amount of restitution, a figure that will be decided at a Nov. 9 restitution hearing.
During the scheme, which ran from 2011 to 2018, Mitchell used funds from the center to write checks to himself, the Saugus Wings, an AAU baseball team he owned and operated, and “various unauthorized third-party organizations” for his own benefit and the benefit of the baseball team, the statement said. In all, Mitchell wrote $896,537 in checks to himself. He also wrote $82,510 in checks to the Saugus Wings, and $242,749 in checks to the third-party organizations.
Additionally, Mitchell wrote $73,540 in checks to a Boston Center for Adult Education instructor, forged her signature, and then deposited the funds into his own account. He also stole from funds collected during his successful campaigns for selectman, the statement said.
“The scope of this scheme is made more contemptible when one considers the organization it victimized — an organization that has provided educational benefits to tens of thousands of adults since it was founded nearly a century ago,” Hayden said. “This calculated theft struck at the heart of the BCAE’s ability to do what it does so well and has done for so long. Mr. Mitchell’s plea is only the beginning of the reparations that are justified in this shameful breach of fiduciary and civic trust.”
Two of Mitchell’s co-defendants, Susan Brown, 70, and Karen Kalfian, 66, both of Marblehead, are scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 10. Brown is accused of authorizing $565,000 in checks to Kalfian between 2009 and 2018, when Brown served as executive director of BCAE. Kalfian served as a marketing employee for a portion of that time.
