Atkins Found Guilty of Stealing Team Cash
Coach James Atkins is pictured at left in a photo taken last summer.
Former Chelsea Football Coach Sentenced to Home Confinement, Ordered to Pay Restitution
Story Updated 6:59PM, Friday, May 15, 2009
– Allison Goldsberry
James Atkins, a decorated police sergeant credited with revitalizing the Chelsea high school football program and once hired to do the same for Medford, has been found guilty of stealing thousands of dollars in Chelsea team cash.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury Thursday convicted Atkins of multiple larceny charges for withdrawing thousands of dollars from the team’s bank account over a period of years to pay for personal expenses, including vacations and debts, according Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
Jurors found Atkins guilty of five counts of larceny over $250, and one count of larceny by check. He was acquitted of a sixth charge of larceny over $250.
Atkins was sentenced to home confinement on Friday and was ordered to pay $12,900 in restitution to the Chelsea football team.
Superior Court Judge Judith Fabricant sentenced Atkins to serve a period of 90 days in home confinement beginning July 1, during which time he will be monitored with a GPS tracking device. During that period, he is not allowed to leave his home except for medical appointments or religious services that must be pre-approved by the probation department. Atkins was further ordered to begin paying restitution to the Chelsea football team in the amount of $500 each month until the $12,900 has been paid.
Atkins was also sentenced to five years probation following his home confinement. The probationary period will be supervised until he pays the full amount of restitution, after which his probation will be unsupervised. Fabricant also ruled that should Atkins get a job following his period of home confinement, he is barred from holding a fiduciary position, or any position where he would be required to manage funds for a person or organization.
“A jury held James Atkins to account for betraying his oath as a police officer and his abuse of the public trust – most especially the trust placed in him by so many kids in the Chelsea community. James Atkins was once a police sergeant, a football coach, and a mentor to so many students. Not anymore. Through his own greed and selfishness, he threw it all away,†said Conley.
In Atkins’ defense, his attorney, Doug Louison, Atkins used the money for things like equipment and that he kept bad records, but did not commit larceny. Louison said Atkins is a “decorated, honorable†member of the Chelsea Police department and he was eager to put the case behind him so he can get back to work as a cop and a coach.
Prosecutors successfully proved that Atkins withdrew thousands of dollars from the Chelsea football team’s bank account near a strip club, a racetrack, a casino, and a downtown Boston sports bar.
Assistant District Attorney Edward Beagan told a Suffolk Superior Court jury that Atkins, a Chelsea Police sergeant currently suspended from duty, used his position as a head coach and president of the Chelsea High School football team to embezzle almost $10,000 from a bank account meant to support the team’s expenses – funds that had been raised in large part by the young players’ families.
Concerns first voiced by the players’ families prompted an investigation by the Chelsea Police Department and Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to Conley’s office. Beagan said investigators calculated the money Atkins contributed to the team and the amount he withdrew, learning that Atkins had overcompensated himself to the tune of more than $9,000.
According to Beagan, in January of 2007, Atkins attended a meeting with Chelsea High School students’ parents and the school’s athletic director and agreed to repay $8,200 over a series of installments. Beagan said Atkins did not make any of the payments and tried to pass off a $1,000 donation he received from a respected and past donor to the team as a payment from himself.
Beagan also detailed the locations of the various cash withdrawals, including a $500 withdrawal at about 1:40 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2006, from an ATM “right across the rotary from the Squire Lounge,†a Revere strip club; additional three-figure withdrawals near the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut and the Seabrook Greyhound Park dog racing track in New Hampshire; and in Bessemer, Alabama, where Atkins’ grandmother lives, in July 2006.
Beagan said Atkins also used the account’s ATM card in February 2005 to pay a $634 bar tab at the Champions Sports Bar located in Boston’s Marriott Copley Place hotel.
“These ATM withdrawals occurred in secret,†said Beagan.
Shortly after Atkins was hired in Medford for the Fall 2007 season, he was placed on paid administrative leave by Medford and was not allowed to coach pending the outcome of an investigation by the Suffolk County DA.
He was later indicted midway into the 2008 football season and just two months after school officials announced Atkins was cleared to return as the head football coach in Medford. At the time School Superintendent Roy Belson said no charges had been filed and that Medford has waited long enough for the situation to be resolved.
He has been suspended without pay from the Medford football program this season pending the outcome of his case. Former Everett assistant coach Rico Dello Iacono has been hired as Medford’s head coach.
Atkins was recognized in November of 2005 as the New England Patriots Coach of the Week for his work in turning the Chelsea football team around. He took over the team prior to the 2004 season, and took them from not being able to field a varsity team in 2003 to having a 15-6 record in 2004 and 2005. The award also lauded Atkins for encouraging his players to focus on school so they could graduate and receive college scholarships.