Details of the alleged theft from the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the College’s response mirror a number of recent instances of theft from student groups.

After a rash of pilfering scandals, including the theft of $127,000 from Eliot House’s annual Evening with Champions (EWC) benefit in 1993, the College responded by requiring a two-hour long seminar on financial management for student group leaders—however, administrators resisted any drastic changes.

“We’re not planning to change our policy if we can possibly avoid it,” Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 said at the time. “The autonomy of the student organizations can be maintained.”

Nearly ten years later, the recent arraignment of Randy J. Gomes ’02 and Suzanne M. Pomey ’02 for allegedly stealing nearly $100,000 from the Hasty Pudding Theatricals has made headlines around the country.

But the College, which does not regularly audit student group finances, has not articulated plans to dramatically alter its current policies.

“There is no completely foolproof way to avoid financial improprieties completely,” Associate Dean of College David P. Illingworth ’71 wrote in an e-mail.

A Dark Decade

The alleged theft of nearly $100,000 from the Hasty Pudding Theatricals is not unprecedented.

In 1995, only three years after the $127,000 heist from the EWC treasury, scandal shook two highly visible student organizations—the Yearbook and the Krokodiloes, a popular a capella group.

Both the thefts from the Yearbook and the Krokodiloes, whose treasurer allegedly pilfered $3,000, were smaller in magnitude than the EWC scandal.

Two years later, a Currier House Committee member noticed $15,000 in missing funds from the organization’s treasury.

Former House Committee Treasurer Natalie J. Szekeres ‘97 was eventually indicted of siphoning $7,550 of the funds to her personal account over a six-month period in 1995.

However, the EWC fiasco constituted the biggest public relations debacle. Proceeds from the annual figure skating show, which regularly draws Olympic medallists to perform, are donated to the Jimmy Fund for cancer research.

Charles K. Lee ’93 and David G. Sword ’93, both EWC executives during their senior year, took advantage of the organization’s shoddy record keeping system—Sword was said to keep receipts in a milk carton—to siphon away money.

When Lee and Sword’s successors assumed leadership of the organization the following summer, they discovered $160,000 missing.