Was the ex-finance director for Keys schools a whistleblower or part of the problem?

Nine years ago, the Monroe County School District was plunged into scandal when it came to light the then-wife of the then-superintendent had stolen nearly a half million dollars.

Monique Acevedo went to prison for nearly seven years. Her husband, Randy Acevedo, served probation and has since remarried. The district now hires the superintendent since voters’ last pick was Randy.

And Kathy Reitzel, the district’s finance director who says she lost her job as a result of the scandal, finally has her day in court.

Reitzel’s wrongful termination lawsuit, filed in 2010 against the Keys school board, continued Tuesday, with Reitzel testifying most of the day. Both sides have now rested.

Reitzel says the interim superintendent after Acevedo, Joe Burke, handed her an ultimatum on Sept. 2, 2009: resign or get fired, blaming her for not acting fast enough to expose the embezzlement.

She chose to retire, although her lawsuit contends her decision was made under duress. Now she wants her job back with seniority back pay. She had earned $95,910 annually.

Reitzel calls herself the whistleblower; the school board’s attorneys say her reports on the embezzlement were too little too late and she was part of the problem.

The trial, which opened last week, has included testimony regarding policy and procedure and who was in charge in the late 2000s.

But Reitzel got her punches in during cross-examination, as the board’s attorney Michael Burke pressed her to say whether she was at fault since she had caught Monique Acevedo in 2007 buying plane tickets for her family on a school district-issued credit card.

“I had no power to enforce this,” she said.

Retizel went straight to Superintendent Randy Acevedo, saying she told him this could not happen again. He assured her it wouldn’t, grabbed his checkbook and reimbursed the district for the plane tickets, Reitzel says.

She believed him, she told jurors this week at the Monroe County Courthouse before Judge Mark Jones.

“When he gave me the check, I thought she was just an arrogant wife of a superintendent trying to get something over on us and I didn’t think she’d do it again,” Reitzel testified.

Former supervisors of Monique Acevedo, then director of adult education, shirked their responsibilities when it came to checking her purchases, Reitzel said.

“No one wanted to supervise the superintendent’s wife,” Reitzel said. “She was a hot potato.”

Reitzel’s attorney Mick Barnes at one point asked her if she could read palms or see into the future, arguing that she couldn’t have known Monique Acevedo would steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the district.

“Global warming, is not your fault, or is it?” Barnes asked, drawing an objection from Burke so she couldn’t answer.

Earlier in 2009, before the extent of the Acevedos’ crimes became known, Reitzel refused to sign a letter certifying that information the school district was about to provide to state auditors for the 2008-09 academic year was accurate and not fraudulent.

That was the first year such a letter was required by state law. Acevedo signed the document.

Reitzel then brought concerns about the fraudulent use of district credit cards to the state Auditor General’s Office and to school board member Andy Griffiths on March 2, 2009.

That kicked off the investigation that led to the Acevedos’ arrests and convictions. But school board members at the time faulted Reitzel for having policies in place, or lack thereof, that helped create an environment favorable to graft, and for not saying something sooner.

Closing arguments are set to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The jury is expected to start deliberating by early afternoon.

This story was originally published October 16, 2018 at 8:20 PM with the headline "Was the ex-finance director for Keys schools a whistleblower or part of the problem?."