A police dispatcher in Missouri who stole money she had raised for a police officer who was paralyzed in the line of duty, resigned on November 30, but will still be eligible for her pension, although she was charged last week.
April Briscuso, 40, was arrested in November after it was discovered that she kept some of the money she helped raise for former Officer Craig Tudor, who was paralyzed from the chest down in a car crash in 2016 on his way to a call. Hazelwood Police Chief Gregg Hall allowed Briscoe, who had worked as a dispatcher for 11 years, to resign at the end of November, but an internal affairs investigation was launched.
According to St. Louis County police, between June and September, Briscuso organized fundraisers for Tudor, and stole more than $9,500. She admitted to police she used the funds to gamble at casinos.
Tudor and his wife, Christine, told investigators they never got the funds garnered from several events hosted in their name, including a St. Louis Cardinals game, a dine-out event, and a painting night, other than checks donors wrote to them directly.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:
Investigators concluded that Briscuso told donors to make checks payable to her even after Tudor told her to stop doing so. She told Christine Tudor that she had been depositing donations into her personal account, according to the documents.
Briscuso confessed to the Post-Dispatch after she was arrested that she raised more than $75,000 for Tudor and intended to pay him his full share, but the Tudors countered that they received “nowhere near that amount.”
A GoFundMe account created after the crash that paralyzed Tudor has collected $34,000.