Former GI Northwest Music Teacher gets 3 months in jail

GRAND ISLAND – A Grand Island Northwest music teacher is going to jail for stealing money from the school’s show choir fund.

David Sackschewsky, 46, was accused of stealing more than $200,000 from the Northwest 14-Karat Gold Show Choir fund. In October he pled no contest to felony Theft by Unlawful Taking and Second Degree Forgery. Prosecutors dropped five other felony forgery charges.

Thursday a judge sentenced Sackschewsky to 90 days in jail, five months probation and ordered him to pay back $150,000 to the school.

Grand Island police arrested Sackschewsky after connecting him to a Sept. 27th 2018, complaint of suspicious transactions on the bank account of the 14-Karat Gold Show Choir at Northwest High School. Grand Island police said the total monetary value of the five listed charges was $207,641.28.

Sackschewsky was the director of the choir at the time of the offenses which court records indicate happened between 2014 and 2019.

A court affidavit shows police found suspicious activity in both Sackschewsky’s personal and business accounts, and mentions at least two family members in the transactions.

It says an employee with First National Bank Omaha flagged the show choir’s account in late September after more than $20,000 in cash was taken out with ATM withdrawals.

The bank launched an investigation, and found many two-party checks written directly to Sackschewsky. They reported most of the suspicious checks were written by the show choir treasurer, who was also Sackschewsky’s sister.

The police investigation revealed Sackschewsky got close to $180,000 from the show choir account since May 2016, which it says he funneled into his personal account, and an account for Choral Strategies, a company which he and his wife own and run.

The report says in a period of two months, he withdrew $24,400 in cash from various ATM machines using the show choir debit card.

The document also says he forged and inflated invoices from music and licensing vendors that were never done at the school. The forgery charges refer to transactions made on June 14, 2014, in the amount of $10,100; June 1, 2015, for $15,400; November 15, 2015, for $1,800; and November 30, 2015 for $1,800.

In October, 2018, Sackschewsky was seriously injured in a traffic accident west of Grand Island. At the time investigators said Sackschewsky’s pickup drifted into the opposing lane and struck a semi-truck head on.

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