PTC mom: 'I did the wrong thing'

A woman who pleaded no contest to embezzling thousands from her children's school apologized to the community last week in her first public comments on the case, calling the experience "a nightmare.""I got in a tough situation, but no matter what, it wasn't right," Angela Annis told The Press-Tribune on Friday. "I did the wrong thing."The Granite Bay resident is serving a 150-day home-monitoring sentence for embezzling more than $50,000 from the Eureka School parent teacher club, where she served as treasurer. In a phone conversation, the mother of five described how she engaged in a cycle of skimming and repaying money from the fund after a French-fry distributorship she operated started having financial troubles.Over a three-year period that ended last September, Annis said she wrote numerous checks from the PTC's account to her business account. Periodically, Annis would write checks back from the business account to the PTC, she said. Annis has also admitted to taking $5,000 in cash."I was terrified," she said when asked if she ever thought she would get caught. She added: "I knew I was doing the wrong thing and in my mind I honestly believed I was going pay it all back."The scheme unraveled when one of her business-to-PTC deposits was returned by the bank, triggering an investigation by the PTC and a felony embezzlement charge by the Placer County District Attorney's Office.Lynne Pautsch, the Eureka School PTC president, said the issue had consumed the time of several PTC members for much of the school year. Rebuilding parents' trust has also been a challenge, she said. Still, she said, she and other members of the school community were ready to move on."We just want to get back to making the best decisions for our children at our district," she said, adding she appreciated Annis's apology.Now wearing an ankle bracelet, Annis said the toughest part was telling her children, some of whom still attend Eureka district schools. But she also praised the district's handling of the ordeal."I have to say the school district has been great with them," she said. Even after Annis's sentencing, however, squabbles over money have continued, with both sides claiming they were owed funds.On Friday, Annis said she would probably not pursue an effort to recover nearly $8,000 she is said to have overpaid the PTC as part of $40,000 in restitution she made shortly before the arrest.District and PTC representatives have rebuffed her claim to the funds. They said they were actually owed thousands in restitution from Annis for time spent investigating the matter and believe more funds were likely taken than have been identified. While maintaining that position, Tim McCarty, the Eureka Union School District's superintendent, said it's his desire to "move on and let things lie as they are.""We have a very clear conscience that many more dollars were taken – something we believe is true but can't prove – and that there are many more costs that we did not receive restitution for," he said. "But we should all move on with our lives and focus on educating kids at this point. This has been an enormous distraction and it's far better that we all move on."Since the incident, the school district has helped PTCs establish strengthened accounting practices, officials have said.Annis is allowed to drive her children to school and attend church, but she said she will miss her son's high school graduation this year. "The hardest is my kids knowing I've hurt them," she said. "My oldest have learned people make mistakes. They still love me and they realize that. We do the wrong thing, but they can still forgive."