INDIANAPOLIS -- Marion County prosecutors charged a husband and wife who were longtime employees of Southport High School this week with forgery and theft for allegedly misappropriating more than $5,000 from the school.
Scott Whitlock, 48, and his wife, Barbara Whitlock, 49, are accused of fabricating a baseball clinic at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, which they then, according to investigators, used as a front to purchase tickets to Las Vegas on their school credit cards.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Scott Whitlock was employed from August 2001 to Sept. 1, 2017, as the head coach of the Southport High School baseball team and as an assistant to the drama club.
His wife, Barbara, was employed as the school’s head of the drama/music department from November 2006 through Sept. 8, 2017.
The couple reportedly resigned their positions after being confronted about the credit card usage.
According to the affidavit, Southport High School officials contacted the director of baseball operations at UNLV, who confirmed that there was no baseball coaches’ clinic at the university at the time the Whitlocks were reportedly attending one. The school said it had no idea how Scott Whitlock obtained a receipt for the clinic that he turned in to school officials.
Further investigation determined that the Whitlocks had reportedly made charges in excess of $500 for food from the Linq Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, paid for out of the school’s baseball account.
Investigators linked other charges in excess of $300 reported as expenditures for a coaches clinic in Chicago to a trip by the Whitlock family in which they attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game and visited different Chicago universities with their daughter. According to the affidavit, investigators found no evidence to validate the coaches clinic.
On a family trip to New York, investigators accuse the Whitlocks and their three children of attending a Broadway performance of the musical “Chicago” on the school’s dime.
On Wednesday Scott and Barbara Whitlock were formally charged in Marion County with multiple felony counts of forgery and theft.
The couple was arrested on Thursday. As of Friday afternoon they were being held at the Marion County Jail pending a bond hearing.
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