Alleged Transfers from Pudding Accounts

If all goes according to plan, around 1:30 this afternoon, Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ President Greg C. Padgett ’02 will sit down in a red Corvette next to the Pudding’s Woman of the Year, Sarah Jessica Parker, and parade through Harvard Square amid a swirl of Pudding men dressed in drag.

The colorful annual ritual is supposed to be one of the Pudding’s shining moments each year.

This year is different. This year, few on the Pudding staff are smiling.

This year, on the day when the Man and Woman of the Year were announced last month, a far larger story was occurring behind closed doors at the Middlesex County Courthouse: A grand jury was finalizing testimony and preparing to indict two of the Pudding’s former executives for allegedly stealing nearly $100,000 from the group.

Now, one week after the indictments were made public and two days after both Randy J. Gomes ’02 and Suzanne M. Pomey ’02 pleaded not guilty to a single charge of grand larceny, more details have emerged of how the scheme worked, where the money went and who the accused students really are.

The Money

The scheme began small, prosecutors allege, then as months passed and their actions went undetected, Pomey and Gomes gradually stole larger and larger amounts.

According to court records, Pomey first used the Pudding’s credit card machine to credit her own bank account with $300 on March 21, 2000. Randy J. Gomes ’02 became directly involved in November that year when his bank account was credited with $213.16. From there, the amounts only went up: $500, $1,000, $2,500.

A year ago today Pomey allegedly credited her account with $3,697—just days before she became a minor campus celebrity after being kissed by Anthony Hopkins, last year’s Pudding Man of the Year.

In total, prosecutors documented 28 instances, ranging up to credits of $9,000-plus. On four occasions, both Gomes and Pomey received money on the same day. By early 2001, Gomes was crediting his account with more than $4,000 a month.

By the time Pomey relinquished her position as Pudding producer last year, the duo had allegedly made off with $91,000 in illegal credits; Gomes received about $68,000 of that money and Pomey got nearly $23,000, according to prosecutors.

Under questioning by the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD), Pomey admitted crediting her account “one or two times, but could not remember when she did so,” according to court papers. She said that more often she would give her credit card to Gomes who would then transfer the money.

Gomes told police that he had transferred money to both his and Pomey’s accounts, and withdrew money with Pomey’s debit card from her account, according to the indictment records.

When University officials began to question Pomey and Gomes, both agreed to repay at least some of the funds taken, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Indeed, in an e-mail to alumni last week, Pudding executives said they were confident the money taken would be recovered.