Norwood superintendent stole $60,000-plus by intercepting charter school checks, state says

Norwood City Schools' former superintendent stole more than $60,000 from the school district and its charter school.

Rob Amodio pleaded guilty to the theft in November, according to a release Thursday from Ohio Auditor of State Dave Yost’s office.

A routine financial audit showed payments meant for the Norwood Conversion Community School were never deposited, the release states. That triggered an investigation, which found other payments meant for the school district were missing as well.

“This thief capitalized on a perfect storm of internal control breakdowns,” Yost said in the release. “School districts simply cannot afford to overlook weaknesses in their financial processes given the ever-present risk of fraud. Fortunately, in this case, the district recovered the stolen funds.”

Amodio quit abruptly in August, but school officials would not say why at the time.

According to the audit, Amodio stole the money by intercepting checks meant for the district's charter school. He then "fraudulently endorsed them with the stamp of the school's treasurer" and deposited them into accounts he controlled.

Amodio wrote checks to himself from those accounts and used them to pay for personal expenses at Capitol One, Citibank and Kohls.

Amodio tried in June to refund one of the stolen checks, but that payment bounced.

He pleaded guilty on Nov. 13, according to the release, and was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $63,004. He made that payment the same day he was sentenced.

As a superintendent, Amodio was an outspoken supporter of the very charter school he was convicted of stealing from. In 2016, after Norwood Conversion Community School was in trouble for a poor rating, Amodio vowed to appeal.

He told The Enquirer at the time that the state’s rating was an “unfair and dramatically incorrect representation of the work we are doing as the sponsor" of the school.

A full copy of the audit is available online.