Natalie J. Szekeres '97 will be arraigned in Middlesex District Court next month for allegedly embezzling $7,550 from the Currier House Committee over a six-month period in 1995.
Szekeres, who served as treasurer of the house committee during that period, wrote checks to herself from the committee account and cashed them at various banks, court records charge.
Szekeres is not enrolled at Harvard this year and was not present at a magistrate's hearing last Tuesday where initial evidence was presented. Her arraignment is scheduled for March 8.
Currier residents received a letter on Sunday night informing them that $12,000 had been discovered missing from the house committee's accounts. The letter did not specify who was being charged with the crime.
Zachary T. Buchwald '96, president of the house committee from February 1995 to February 1996, said last night that he discovered the money missing from the Currier accounts in September.
Buchwald said that he had not previously noticed any financial discrepancies in the Currier accounts.
"We had constant expenses over last spring and especially this summer, and we were never in a state of financial distress," said Buchwald, who has also served as the committee's treasurer. "It wasn't until the house committee went dangerously low in our checking account that it came to light."
Without explicitly naming Szekeres, Buchwald said he was "very surprised at the person who was clearly the only suspect.
"It came as a real surprise and a real shock," he said.
Numerous phone calls to Szekeres, who is presently living in Landover, Maryland, were not returned over the last two days.
Szekeres' mother said last night that she did not know any other details about the case.
Szekeres' mother, who refused to give her first name, said that she and her daughter have not been on speaking terms for some time.
"Somebody called me anonymously and told me that something was going on," said Szekeres' mother in a telephone interview from her home in Holmden, New Jersey. "Natalie has not spoken to me, and the school has told me they can't discuss it with me."
Szekeres' mother said she does not even know why Szekeres is taking the year off.
"I can't hypothesize on stuff that I Szekeres' former roommates in Currier House refused to comment, as did several past and current members of the house committee. Read more in News