A 14-year-old student at Lake Weir Middle School in Summerfield, FL is reportedly facing grand theft charges after authorities say the teen girl swiped approximately $13,500 of her grandmother’s life savings from her safe and handed $10,000 of it out to her classmates.
The police report states that the middle school student distributed hundreds of dollars in cash to each of her peers. According to FOX 35, once school officials learned about the incident, principal Jason Jacobs sent a message to the parents of the students requesting their assistance locating the stolen funds.
“We would like to recover this money for the grandparents. If you speak with your children and if they have received money from the student, please turn it in to our school resource officers,” Jacobs urged.
Upon receiving the message, Michelle Spaulding, a Lake Weir Middle School parent, spoke with her daughter.
“That’s when she was like, ‘Yeah, mom! The child did come up to me and ask me if I wanted $100,'” Spaulding told FOX 35. “And she said, ‘No, it’s got to be stolen, I don’t want nothing to do with it.’”
Spaulding shared her sympathy for the grandparents in the situation, adding, “I really hope it gets recovered, because that’s so devastating. I feel really bad for the family.”
The 14-year-old student was arrested Friday and is facing charges of grand theft. She was given a $2,000 bond. According to the arrest report, she does not say why she stole the money or why she decided to give it away.
At first she told deputies that a friend who had moved away asked her to hand out the money. However, students who accepted the cash said that the teen told them that it was her grandmother’s money and she was given permission to give it to them. Eventually, the teen admitted to breaking into the safe using a metal pick and screw driver, then stealing a 6-inch stack of twenty dollar bills.
Officials are still trying to recover all of the funds taken from the grandparents’ safe. By Friday, $2,500 was recovered from the girl’s backpack and $700 of the money that was handed out to the students had been returned. Principal Jacobs and school resource officers have said that there would not be any consequences for students who turn in any money they received.
