In October 2012, Gerald Benisch, then the league’s vice president, spoke with a loan officer at Summit Credit Union about the league’s line-of-credit account, which was used to build a concession stand, and learned that payments were being made only toward interest, and not toward the principal.

When Benisch looked at the account statements he saw that someone embezzled from the league.

On Nov. 2, 2012, he met with Verhage and told him what he discovered. Verhage at first offered to look into it, but then allegedly said, “Jerry, it’s me,” and “Jerry, you knew it was me, didn’t you?”

He said at that point that he had been stealing for only about 1½ years a total of less than $12,000. But when Madison police Detective Kevin Linsmeier began going through the accounts between 2005 and 2012, he found 50 checks written to Verhage and cashed by him totaling $75,474. The checks were written to Verhage but often the checkbook stub ﻿listed a different payee ﻿.

﻿Other checks, totaling $44,139, were written to “cash,” while some of another group of checks totaling $8,100 were payable to Verhage’s home inspection business and others. One check was used to buy a motorcycle.