Legacy Traditional School principal charged in crowdfunding scheme

A charter school principal is accused of allowing teachers to steal $150,000 worth of merchandise by submitting fake requests for classroom materials.

Victoria Welling, principal of Legacy Traditional School, allowed sixth grade teachers Andrea Fuentes-Soto and Christopher Olmstead to apply for money under multiple fake names, according to a report released Thursday by the Metropolitan Police Department.

Lawyers for the three suspects could not be reached for comment.

The teachers applied for multiple grants up to $954 through DonorsChoose, a nonprofit crowdfunding site intended to help teachers make purchases for their classrooms.

DonorsChoose reached out to Welling in November, suspicious about a school of 72 staff members submitting 163 requests. Welling ignored the email, prompting a program representative to contact Metro to investigate, according to the police report.

Officers discovered that Olmstead made 21 accounts and Fuentes-Soto made 16 accounts. Each teacher is only allowed to apply once, and the school administration is expected to review each application and confirm that teacher’s identity.

The report requesting arrest warrants outlined the $15,000 worth of materials Olmstead bought, including six Nintendo Switches, two drones, a 70-inch TV, an Apple TV, LED lights, gaming cards and a virtual reality system. More than $4,000 worth of merchandise was not in his classroom, leading detectives to believe it was for personal use.

‘Free money’

Fuentes-Soto requested more than $7,000 worth of merchandise, and when officers spoke to her at her home, she showed them 27 items that were for personal use. She identified two iPads, a tablet, a laptop, a Swiffer, a humidifier and several toys.

The teacher gave her phone to officers, and the police report outlined several conversations between the woman and her husband in which she called the grant items Christmas presents and asked him to pick out which toys and electronics he wanted.

In some of the text messages, she called it “free money” or told him that the “state is paying for it,” according to the report.

On Nov. 10, she told her husband she no longer could submit fake accounts because their principal asked the teachers to stop.

“Apparently my principal has to verify if the person works at the school and we have been using fake names lol but I got everything we could,” she wrote.

Group chat

Olmstead and Fuentes-Soto were part of a group chat with other sixth grade teachers in which they shared photos when their merchandise came in and made jokes about spoiling themselves with items. The other teachers’ names were redacted from the report.

“Welling just emailed all the leads saying that she will no longer approve any Donors Chooses that aren’t real teachers names. Just an FYI,” Olmstead texted the group on Nov. 14.

Olmstead and Fuentes-Soto were fired on Dec. 30, school officials told police, but it remained unclear if Welling was terminated. Court records show that she was extradited to Las Vegas on July 8. The report did not indicate where she was arrested.

A statement from the Clark County School District said Welling was the assistant principal at Cheyenne High School from 2015 to 2018, and earlier this year she was offered a position as an assistant principal at another school in the district but did not accept it. The district refused to identify the school.

“All candidates for employment undergo a criminal FBI background check,” the school district wrote in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “If a candidate passes the background check, they continue in the process toward a contingency hire. Additionally, District staff verify work history, and reference checks as part of the application and hiring process. Personnel files are also reviewed for applicants who have previously worked for the District.”

Welling was charged with two counts of theft over $5,000, two counts of obtaining money over $5,000 under false pretenses and a felony act regarding computers. She posted bail last Friday.

Fuentes-Soto and Olmstead each were charged with conspiracy to commit theft, theft over $5,000, obtaining money under false pretenses and a felony act regarding computers.

They were held on a bail of $153,918.85, the exact amount police believe the school received in items through the grant program.

All three are scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.