{"id":110875,"date":"2026-02-11T07:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/110875\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T07:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:27:09","slug":"burrell-boys-basketball-coach-accused-of-embezzling-nearly-250k-from-philadelphia-area-nonprofit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/110875\/","title":{"rendered":"Burrell boys&#8217; basketball coach accused of embezzling nearly $250K from Philadelphia-area nonprofit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.maxpreps.com\/pa\/lower-burrell\/burrell-bucs\/basketball\/staff\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Burrell High School boys&#8217; basketball coach<\/a> Michael Fantuzzo has been arrested in Montgomery County on embezzlement charges and is accused of stealing nearly $250,000 from a nonprofit in the Philadelphia area.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/montgomerycountypa.gov\/ArchiveCenter\/ViewFile\/Item\/6335\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Montgomery County District Attorney&#8217;s Office said Monday<\/a> that Fantuzzo was arrested on multiple felony counts related to the alleged theft of nearly $250,000 from the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association, a nonprofit where he had served as treasurer.<\/p>\n<p>The district attorney&#8217;s office said that the missing funds were discovered when a new board of directors was elected and performed a review of the association&#8217;s finances.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/kdka-montomgery-county-burrell-high-school-michael-fantuzzo.png#.png\" alt=\"kdka-montomgery-county-burrell-high-school-michael-fantuzzo.png \" height=\"347\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  The Montgomery County District Attorney&#8217;s Office announced that Burrell High School boys&#8217; basketball coach Michael Fantuzzo was arrested and charged with multiple felonies in connection with alleged embezzlement of nearly $250,000 from the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association.<\/p>\n<p>                Montgomery County District Attorney&#8217;s Office<\/p>\n<p>Fantuzzo is accused of making unauthorized personal purchases using organization funds between May 2021 and September 2025 that totaled over $246,000.<\/p>\n<p>The district attorney&#8217;s office said the purchases included a family trip to Disney World, an Outer Banks vacation rental, country club membership fees, limousine service, purchase and installation of a hot tub at Fantuzzo&#8217;s home and payment of local and state property taxes.\u00a0  <\/p>\n<p>Fantuzzo turned himself into Montgomery County Detectives last week and is set to face a judge for a preliminary hearing next week.<\/p>\n<p>The Burrell boys&#8217; basketball team is slated to face Belle Vernon Area on Friday night <a href=\"https:\/\/wpial.org\/documents\/2026\/2\/9\/4A_Boys.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in the first round of the WPIAL 4A Playoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>KDKA has reached out the Burrell School District and the district&#8217;s athletic department for comment but has not yet heard back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burrell High School boys&#8217; basketball coach Michael Fantuzzo has been arrested in Montgomery County on embezzlement charges and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2898,200,28,73,75,74,5910,5950],"class_list":{"0":"post-110875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-embezzlement","9":"tag-montgomery-county","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-westmoreland-county","15":"tag-wpial"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}