An alumni group treasurer associated with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is being charged with stealing more than $190,000 reserved for scholarships and computer donations.
A criminal complaint has been filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court against Sana Jennings-Fossum. The complaint accuses her of taking the money in a string of nine transactions dating back to 1998 in her role as treasurer of the Tax Association of Milwaukee.
Fossum faces up to $90,000 in fines and 27 years in prison.
“It’s an individual, and it’s not connected with the alumni association,” said Barbara Flint, executive director of the UW-Milwaukee alumni association. “It happens to be a group of alumni from the school of business, but it’s not an alumni association involvement. There are over 100,000 alumni; [it] just happened to be a UW-M alum. Most of the people in that organization apparently are UW-M [alumni] from the school of business.”
The complaint said Fossum made Amway Corporation purchases for the association for a banquet that never took place.
“It was explained to her that she benefited from the transactions in two ways: first, that she didn’t use her own money to purchase the products, and, secondly, she and her husband were receiving commission and bonuses for the amount of purchased sales that had been transacted by Amway Corp., and finally, she was not authorized to do those transactions,” the complaint said.
Members of the alumni group are graduates of UW-Milwaukee’s master’s program.