Two school board members charged with theft

Two mem­bers of the Clark County Board of Education have been arrest­ed and jailed for theft.

The charges do not involve the school dis­trict or school funds.

The two are charged with theft by unlaw­ful tak­ing or dis­po­si­tion in a state police case involv­ing Winchester Youth Soccer League funds.

Both sus­pects, Ashley Ritchie-Rowland, 45, and Ben Francis Dorsey, 44, are for­mer mem­bers of the non­prof­it league’s board, and Dorsey is its for­mer chair.

The two were arrest­ed and lodged at the Clark County Detention Center  Wednesday, June 24: Ritchie-Rowland at 11:37 a.m. and Dorsey at 8:03 p.m., accord­ing to the jail’s website.

The charges against them are iden­ti­cal: theft by unlaw­ful tak­ing or dis­po­si­tion between $10,000 and $1 million.

Bond was set at $70,000 cash.

Dorsey was released on bond Thursday, and has a court appear­ance set for July 27 at 9 a.m. Ritchie-Rowland was still in jail as of Thursday after­noon and was sched­uled to be on the jail dock­et July 1 at 10:30 a.m.

(As of Friday morn­ing, Ritchie-Rowland was no longer list­ed as an inmate on the jail’s website.) 

In a news release post­ed on Facebook Wednesday night, Justin Kearney, the pub­lic infor­ma­tion offi­cer for Kentucky State Police Post 7 in Richmond, report­ed that in October 2025, state police were con­tact­ed by the soc­cer league regard­ing “sus­pi­cious and unusu­al bank­ing activ­i­ty involv­ing one or more mem­bers of the organization’s board of directors.”

Following sev­er­al months of inves­ti­ga­tion by KSP detec­tives, the find­ings were pre­sent­ed to the Clark County Attorney’s Office this month. As a result, arrest war­rants were obtained and served on Ritchie-Rowland and Dorsey the same day.

According to Kearney, the inves­ti­ga­tion remains ongo­ing by Detective Frank Thornberry of the Richmond post.

The Winchester Sun and oth­er area news media report­ed in December that unnamed audi­ence mem­bers told the school board dur­ing a meet­ing that two board mem­bers were under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion for mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds from anoth­er board. County Attorney William Elkins at the time con­firmed that there was a state police inves­ti­ga­tion, but did not pro­vide any details then.

After Ritchie-Rowland’s arrest Wednesday morn­ing, Clark County Public Schools Superintendent Dustin Howard said in a state­ment that school offi­cials were “aware of a sit­u­a­tion regard­ing an elect­ed sit­ting CCPS board member.”

“Please note that the alle­ga­tions are NOT regard­ing ser­vice on the CCPS board. No alle­ga­tions have been made against Clark County Public Schools,” he texted.

On Thursday, Rebecca McCoy, the school board’s attor­ney, sent WinCity Voices a let­ter from the superintendent.

“Yesterday, I was sad­dened to learn that two elect­ed mem­bers of the Clark County Board of Education were arrest­ed for alleged­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing funds from a local youth soc­cer league,” Howard said.

He said the oth­er three board mem­bers are not involved, and that there are no alle­ga­tions per­tain­ing to the Clark County School District. Further, he said, board mem­bers have no direct access to pub­lic school funds. 

“I have been asked whether these indi­vid­u­als will be asked to step down from the Board of Education,” Howard con­tin­ued. “Because they are elect­ed offi­cials, the School District and the oth­er Board mem­bers have no author­i­ty to remove them. The process to remove an elect­ed Kentucky school board mem­ber requires involve­ment of the Kentucky Attorney General. Where there are crim­i­nal charges against a board mem­ber, the board mem­ber is sub­ject to removal once con­vict­ed of a felony.”

Ritchie-Rowland, a for­mer chair of the school board, has rep­re­sent­ed District 5 since 2013.

Dorsey has been on the school board since 2023, rep­re­sent­ing District 4.

She is not on the bal­lot in the November gen­er­al elec­tion because board terms are stag­gered, but he is up for re-elec­tion and is unop­posed unless a write-in can­di­date files to run against him by the Aug. 11 deadline.