The former financial director of Kappa Alpha Psi, one of America’s largest Black college fraternities, has plead guilty to stealing nearly $3 million from the organization.
Curtis D. Anderson, a former top executive of the frat, worked over 30 years with the organization. Prosecutors alleged that Anderson, 59, began stealing from the 110-year-old fraternity in June 2012. Court documents state that he had a gambling problem and lost most of the money at Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack. He started out as a bookkeeper for Kappa Alpha Psi before eventually becoming the finance director.
The court filings also stated that Anderson would write checks from the Kappa Alpha Psi check book to himself or to others whose signatures he faked. He would then exchange them for cash at Santander or Wells Fargo banks. He is accused of cashing 78 fraudulent checks over a six-year period.
Anderson plead guilty on Nov. 9 in the Pennsylvania Eastern District Court to four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. He was fired from Kappa Alpha Psi in December 2018 after Santander Bank alerted the organization about suspicious transactions.
According to a report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia-based fraternity’s executive director, John Burrell, and its then-president, Thomas Battles, attended a meeting at the branch to discuss the irregularities. The men saw Anderson ducking out of the bank and called him on his cell phone and asked him to come back. When confronted, Anderson gave a full confession, telling his bosses that he was battling gambling and alcohol addictions.
Anderson will learn his fate when he attends his sentencing hearing on Feb. 22, 2022. He was allowed to remain free until then but could be sentenced to a maximum of 82 years in prison and a fine of over $1 million.
