SAN ANTONIO – East Central Independent School District has suspended its affiliation with one of its booster clubs after allegations surfaced that one of the club’s officers misused thousands of dollars.
The woman, Ashlee Ring, had been serving as treasurer of the district’s FFA/agriculture booster club, despite being under indictment in an unrelated felony fraud case, public records confirm.
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ECISD police were made aware of the possible theft in October after another officer in the club came forward and said Ring used the funds without permission.
An accountant overseeing the club’s bank account notified its president about missing funds last fall, according to an ECISD police report released to the KSAT 12 Defenders.
A district spokesman confirms the case was turned over to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office late last week.
Ring has not been formally charged in the booster club case.
“The booster club neglected to follow best practices in accounting procedures, such as requiring two signatures for every transaction. The District offers best practices training for officers of every booster organization annually, but ultimately they are their own non-profit organization which limits our ability to provide oversight,” Brandon Oliver, ECISD’s director of marketing and communications, said via email this week.
The district’s webpage for the club, an organization that helps prepare students for possible careers in farming and agriculture, still listed Ring as its treasurer Tuesday evening.
The webpage, however, had been taken offline by Wednesday morning.
Ring was indicted in October 2019 in an unrelated case and charged with one count of misapplication of fiduciary property between $150,000 and $300,000 and one count of theft between $150,000 and $300,000, court records show.
Ring, reached by telephone Tuesday, denied the allegations against her in both cases and said the case she was indicted for would be dismissed within a few weeks.
Court records, however, show the case is set for trial on Feb. 26 and a DA spokesperson said via email Tuesday the case is currently pending trial.
An official with RBC Property Management, listed as the victim in Ring’s indictment paperwork, told the Defenders Tuesday that Ring worked as the company’s vice-president and manipulated funds between the company and multiple apartments over a five-year period.
The official said Ring left behind almost $200,000 in credit card bills and had illegally used the cards for personal use, including buying property at one point.
An attorney representing Ring in that case told the Defenders Tuesday afternoon he had instructed his client to stop having conversations with anybody about either case and to direct further inquiries to him.
The attorney then hung up after the Defenders asked him two follow up questions regarding the alleged thefts.
The Texas Penal Code lists misapplication of fiduciary property between $150,000 and $300,000 as a second-degree felony fraud charge.
ECISD police records show the alleged booster club theft is being investigated as a misapplication of fiduciary property between $2,500 and $30,000, a state jail felony.
Oliver said via email that because the booster club is its own organization, a criminal background check was not required for its members.
“This person, as a parent, is only run through the campus background check system which does not pull this type of criminal charge, and as such, the District had no reason to know and did not know about it,” said Oliver, referring to Ring’s 2019 criminal indictment.