John U. Bacon

Last week I wrote about the case of Kimberly Knight. She’s the treasurer who pled guilty to embezzling almost a million dollars from the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association. Knight effectively wiped out the organization’s savings – including its scholarship fund, its down payment for a new rink, even its operating budget. And now the association is fighting for its very existence.

For most crimes, there are shades of gray, and two sides to the story. Not this time. On one side you have an all-volunteer organization that’s helped 20,000 kids play hockey since 1951.

On the other side you have a corrupt treasurer who methodically emptied almost a million dollars from the pockets of those kids who paid to play hockey. She pulled this off over a two-year period – hardly a spontaneous act. Then she gorged herself on diamond earrings, Escalades and expensive trips.

Knight claims she’s already paid back almost a quarter million. The association says she hasn’t paid back a cent. Hmm. Whom do you believe?

Before Knight’s sentencing, the probation department recommended she pay back $160,000 immediately, to keep the league afloat. Judge Melinda Morris agreed, but Knight asked for two more weeks to get the money together. Judge Morris said: Sure.

On Monday, Knight asked the judge if $75,000 – less than half of what the judge had asked for upfront – would be enough. Judge Morris said: Sure. But Knight still hasn’t paid a dime of even that amount, because she’s still “waiting for checks to clear.” I’m sure we can safely assume the checks are in the mail.

Am I the only one who gets the feeling the criminal is calling the tune here?

The rest of the sentence wasn’t much tougher. Instead of prison – or even work release or house arrest – Knight got parole. Instead of paying back all the money, she needs to write a check for only $1,500 every month. At that rate, with a meager 2.5% interest and no inflation, she will send in her last check when she’s 116 years old. Let’s hope she’s not a smoker.

The rationale for this is simple: If they put Knight behind bars, she can’t pay the money back. But given Morris’s sentence, she’s not going to anyway.

Which brings us to a central problem with embezzlement cases in general – and this one in particular. The old joke goes, if you owe the bank ten thousand dollars, they’ve got you. But if you owe the bank ten million dollars, you’ve got them. Apparently, the more you steal, the more power you have, the softer you can make your sentence.

You don’t have to be vengeful to expect more. It’s a question of who we’re looking out for: the criminal, or the kids? Since Knight became treasurer in 1999, enrollment has dropped dramatically from 1,200 players to just 500 now. The scholarship program is history, as is the league’s “learn to play” programs. The kids who used to get the most help, now get the most hurt.

Another judge in town takes a different approach. Tired of deadbeat dads not paying their alimony child support, he decided to call their bluff and put them in jail, every time, until they paid. It was amazing how quickly they all seemed to find the money they owed their kids. Problem solved.

Something tells me it’s pretty hard to burn through a million bucks with nothing to show for it. And if Judge Morris had the backbone to put Knight in jail, I bet you’d see Ms. Knight cutting a rather large check by lunch.

In coddling the criminal, Judge Morris sold out the kids. Which is a shame, because it’s from hockey that kids learn things like fair play and honor.

Obviously, Kimberly Knight never learned those lessons. Thanks to Judge Morris, she’ll never have to.

But the kids will – the hard way.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

John U. Bacon

On Monday, Kimberly Knight will appear before Judge Melinda Morris to discuss a little financial matter. It seems the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association is missing a few bucks – actually, its entire operating budget, almost a million dollars – and Judge Morris would like to ask Kimberly Knight where it is.

Kimberly Knight should have a pretty good idea. From 1999 to 2007, Knight served as the association’s treasurer.

Those were heady years for the organization. Enrollment was strong, with a high of 1,200 boys and girls playing hockey. The league was bringing in enough money to pay for kids who couldn’t afford to play hockey, and start saving for a rink of their own.

By 2007, it looked like the league’s dream might be within reach. Today, it’s closer to folding altogether.

To appreciate what’s at stake here, it helps to understand that the association started way back in 1951. Its first director, John MacInnes, had played goalie for Michigan and went on to coach Michigan Tech, where he won three NCAA titles and a record 555 games. A true legend – and a good guy.

Many association alums have gone on to play college hockey, and one, Teddy Speers, once scored a goal for the Detroit Red Wings. But that’s never been the point of the league. The goal has always been to get more kids playing hockey, making them a little healthier and happier, and keeping them out of trouble. If you ask any of the league’s 20,000 alums, including yours truly, you’ll hear just how successful the league has been.

More impressive, to me, is the fact that the league’s always been run entirely by volunteers – people with day jobs and families who still devote tons of time to an often thankless task. I think about my coaches like Roy Bolles, who didn’t even have kids on the team. We’re still in touch. I think about referees like Ken Westerman and Jeff “Tiny” Bourne, who not only got up at 5:30 to make sure we didn’t kill each other – for peanuts – but would take the time between whistles to teach us about the game.

But what I remember most is going over to see the Childs, who ran the league in the seventies, and seeing the piles and piles of jerseys – hundreds of them – in their basement, where Mrs. Childs was sewing the names of the sponsors on the back of every single sweater. You don’t forget that.

When her husband Ross stepped down as the league director, the crowd gave him not one, not two, but three standing ovations. You don’t forget that, either.

What makes nonprofit groups so good – the volunteers – is what makes them such easy targets for dark souls like Knight, who did her damnedest to reverse over a half-century of good deeds by pilfering close to a million dollars. She spent it on watches, diamond earrings, and a Cadillac Escalade. They should investigate her husband, too. It’s hard to imagine he had no idea what was going on.

That’s bad enough. But what’s unforgivable is that she took all of it from little boys and girls – many of whom depend on scholarships from the league just to play the game. Even worse, Knight might not pay for it – or very much, anyway. For some reason our system of justice tends to go easy on embezzlers. I have no idea why. If she had robbed a million dollars from our homes, and not our kids, she’d be gone a long time. But Knight is currently negotiating to minimize her jail time – and she might not get any, which is not unusual in Washtenaw County.

Kimberly Knight should be forced to produce every penny of the money she stole from the kids, even if it means selling her home, her land, and her Cadillac Escalade. Better she goes under financially than the league. And she should do prison time. Real time. Hard time.

Judge Morris, I urge you to do the right thing, and protect eight-year-old kids from con artists like Kimberly Knight.

Anything less would be a crime.

[Editor's note: Kimberly Knight pled guilty to felony embezzlement charges earlier this year. She is expected to be sentenced on Monday, and faces up to 10-15 years in prison.] 

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.