In a short hearing Wednesday morning, former Seeworth Academy charter school Superintendent Janet Grigg pleaded no contest to three embezzlement charges that have been pending against her for more than two years.
Grigg, 79, is set to be sentenced July 16. Her attorney, Scott Adams, said they hope she will receive a deferred sentence.
“Due to everything that happened, we’re obviously going to ask for a deferred (sentence) because I don’t think that she’s done anything significant enough that should result in a conviction,” Adams said.
Grigg was charged in September 2022 with three counts of embezzlement and one count of concealing stolen property, a count that was later dismissed. For two decades, Grigg ran the Justice Alma Wilson Seeworth Academy, a charter school founded in 1998 to serve at-risk students impacted by the criminal justice system. It was shuttered in 2019 amid allegations that Grigg had mishandled hundreds of thousands of dollars and that the school’s governing board ignored warnings about her leadership for years.
A state audit released by State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd in November 2021 said Grigg misappropriated $250,000 of public money meant for the school, including using $41,000 from the school’s corporate account for personal use at retail stores and casinos.
Byrd’s audit also said the school’s board was aware of potential fraud happening at the school for years but took no action. The board included powerful figures in the Oklahoma City community, including Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals Judge Barbara Swinton, former Senate Minority Leader Kay Floyd and Lee Anne Wilson — the daughter of Alma Wilson, the school’s namesake and the first woman on the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
“Despite the fact that financial and internal control issues, along with red flags for potential fraud, were brought to the attention of the board, they failed to initiate follow-up procedures, increase oversight, or take other appropriate measures,” auditors wrote in the 2021 audit. “In March 2019, when the board received a whistleblower letter alleging financial improprieties, the allegations were dismissed. Soon after, when an individual offered to donate $1 million on the condition that an independent accounting firm conduct an audit of Seeworth, the donation was refused. (…) The overarching lack of oversight by the board created an environment ripe for financial mismanagement and the misappropriation of funds.”
Adams insisted — as he has before — that all of Grigg’s actions were taken with board approval.
“There’s no question everything she did — in our opinion — was approved by the board,” Adams said. “That will come out at the restitution hearing.”
But Adams also said Grigg was ready to move on from the case.
“It’s been going on for a long time, and going through the documents, it looks like we had some issues with a couple of minor issues, so we went ahead and entered a plea of no contest today, and then we’re actually going to have the hearing in regards to restitution — how much, if any — and the actual sentence here in July,” Adams said Wednesday. “So it was just something we needed to bring it to a close.”
During the hearing, Oklahoma County District Court Judge Cindy Truong and Adams had to repeat questions to Grigg multiple times before receiving an answer. Truong ensured Grigg knew what a “blind plea” was before accepting her no contest plea.
Grigg faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the first two embezzlement counts and up to five years for the third embezzlement count.
A spokeswoman for Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna did not initially respond to a request for a statement. After the publication of this article, the spokeswoman — Brook Arbeitman — said it was not “appropriate” to comment on the case because it is not fully resolved.
(Update:Â This article was updated at 4:24 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2, to include Arbeitman’s explanation for not commenting on the case.)
