ORANGE PARK, Fla. — A Clay County cheerleading coach is facing grand theft charges, accused of stealing thousands of dollars from the non-profit she was in charge of running. A warrant obtained from the Clay County Sheriff's Office says Amanda Herndon used money from the Crush Cheerleading bank account for personal reasons.
Parents say they are upset they lost thousands of dollars and want the coach held responsible.
"I can confidently say that all of our families spent 1000's on each cheer competition early each cheer season," Cheer Mom Clarissa Mathieu said.
For two years, Mathieu had two daughters on Crush Cheerleading teams in Clay County. She says her family had a great experience with the program until recently.
"We just started noticing she was spending a lot of money on things. A lot of money on her personal appearance. We kind of started questioning it as a joke at first," Mathieu said.
An arrest warrant obtained from the Clay County Sheriff's Office says Herndon was arrested on September 2nd for grand theft of $20,000 or more. The report says Herndon was the only one who had access to the money from Crush Cheerleading.
Deputies say the cheer group was funded by the members' parents and the money was supposed to be used for uniforms, cheer equipment, gym rental, competition, hotel fees and private training classes.
"Looking back, there were definitely red flags. I wish that I would have questioned more. Whatever we were told we had to pay, we just paid that, we didn't question it," Mathieu said. "We never got our own gym. If we had our own gym, then she wouldn't have had all this extra money."
The report said the organization's vice president and secretary had suspicions Herndon was profiting from Crush Cheerleading.
They were able to gain access to the bank accounts, discovered several personal transactions that dated back to 2021 and took their findings to the Clay County Sheriff's Office.
Mathieu says the cheer season is ongoing. She says after the news broke, the organizations co-directors disbanded Crush Cheer and created their own program so the season can continue. We reached out to Herndon but did not hear back.