Soccer theft case heads to grand jury

A grand jury will hear charges against two Clark County school board mem­bers involv­ing the alleged theft of thou­sands of dol­lars from the Winchester Youth Soccer League.

Following a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing Sept. 2, District Judge Robert V. Jennings found prob­a­ble cause and referred the case to a grand jury.

If the grand jury indicts the accused, the case will then move to cir­cuit court.

Ashley Ritchie-Rowland and Ben Dorsey are accused of actions involv­ing mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds while they were WYSL board mem­bers between 2023 and 2025.

Ritchie-Rowland is charged with theft — and Dorsey with com­plic­i­ty to theft — of more than $10,000 but less than $1 million.

Both defen­dants are mem­bers of the Clark County Board of Education, but the soc­cer league is not part of the pub­lic school dis­trict, and no alle­ga­tions involve school money.

For a cou­ple of hours Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Heidi Engel and defense attor­neys Brian Thomas and Alex Rowady ques­tioned two wit­ness­es in the case, retired Kentucky State Police Trooper Frank Thornberry, who was the inves­ti­ga­tor, and Lance Gray, the league board mem­ber who audit­ed the finan­cial records for the soc­cer organization.

The records Thornberry sub­poe­naed showed unau­tho­rized trans­ac­tions through Amazon, Boost Mobile, Walmart, Hulu, and Venmo, as well as auto­mat­ic teller machine with­drawals that were not approved by the board.

Thornberry said he was noti­fied by state police on Oct. 28, 2025 about a report of “unusu­al activ­i­ty” dis­cov­ered in bank records of the soc­cer league.

He request­ed assis­tance of a state police foren­sic cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant and met with board mem­bers oth­er than Dorsey and Ritchie-Rowland in December 2025.

“There was an alle­ga­tion of theft, that these funds were being mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed” for per­son­al use, Thornberry said.

He sub­poe­naed records and reviewed spend­ing activ­i­ty going back to 2021.

The detec­tive said he found 1,499 Amazon trans­ac­tions amount­ing to approx­i­mate­ly $37,000 between 2023 and 2025, and those came back to Ritchie-Rowland’s Amazon account.

“The card that was being used was a Winchester Youth Soccer League deb­it card,” he said.

Thornberry said he noticed that Dorsey’s deb­it card was also being used on that Amazon account for some­where between 500 and 600 of those transactions.

Engel asked the detec­tive what kinds of pur­chas­es he found that appeared to be personal.

“Dresses, blue jeans, can­dles, soap, a couch, I think, was pur­chased. T‑shirts. A com­put­er was pur­chased. Home goods. I mean, knives. There’s so many, but that’s an over­all exam­ple of what was being pur­chased,” he said.

There were also thou­sands of dol­lars in pur­chas­es from both the Winchester Walmart and Walmart.com, as well as Venmo trans­fers, Boost Mobile charges, and Hulu stream­ing services.

And there were also about $20,000 in cash with­drawals from ATMs.

In 2024 and 2025, there were sev­er­al checks that were returned for insuf­fi­cient funds, and mon­ey was moved from a cer­tifi­cate of deposit account to cov­er the cold checks and replen­ish the check­ing account.

After Gray’s audit sep­a­rat­ed what he believed to be legit­i­mate expens­es from per­son­al expens­es, he accept­ed a check for $23,634 from Ritchie-Rowland, but the board nev­er approved it.

During Gray’s tes­ti­mo­ny, it was not­ed that the Winchester Youth Soccer League is pend­ing dissolution.

During his clos­ing com­ments, Ritchie-Rowland’s attor­ney, Thomas, argued that his client’s check to the league was “pay­ment in full” and occurred months before she was charged or knew that she would be charged.

“Judge, we’re try­ing to crim­i­nal­ize a case that was resolved civil­ly,” Thomas said.

Engel cit­ed case law prece­dent to show that resti­tu­tion is not a pri­vate mat­ter and is to be deter­mined by the court. Repayment of mon­ey does not bar a sus­pect from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, she said.

Speaking of Dorsey, Engel said there was “over­whelm­ing evi­dence that he was writ­ing cold checks for months on end” and trans­fer­ring mon­ey from the CD account to “make it good.” And “he does noth­ing” about the prob­lem, she added.

Dorsey was believed to be the board’s trea­sur­er in 2025.

Rowady said his client is charged with being com­plic­it in the removal of funds. However, the only ATM with­draw­al involv­ing Dorsey’s card was for $100 made by his wife, and “there is no indi­ca­tion that it was inap­pro­pri­ate,” he argued.

As for the cold checks, Rowady said, Dorsey was unaware of the insuf­fi­cient funds.

“This account is being deplet­ed, and Mr. Dorsey doesn’t know it, and he is writ­ing checks on it to pay legit­i­mate expens­es for WYSL,” he said.

“There is every indi­ca­tion that one defen­dant and not the oth­er ben­e­fit­ed from these … poten­tial­ly inap­pro­pri­ate trans­ac­tions,” Rowady said.

Engel, how­ev­er, said the insuf­fi­cient checks occurred over a con­sid­er­able peri­od of time, and Dorsey had to go to the bank and take mon­ey out of the CD, includ­ing “a huge penal­ty” to cov­er them.

Correction: Previous arti­cles incor­rect­ly report­ed that the charge against Dorsey was theft, but it was actu­al­ly com­plic­i­ty to theft. The com­plaint states that the defen­dant “aid­ed, attempt­ed to aid, or hav­ing a legal duty to pre­vent the con­duct caus­ing the theft, failed to make a prop­er effort to do so, and there­by was com­plic­it” in the alleged crime. Under Kentucky law, the penal­ty for com­plic­i­ty can be the same as for the crime itself.