On Aug. 29, 2024, the St. Louis County Attorney’s office formally announced that the county would not be pursuing criminal charges against the East End Hockey Boosters (EEHB) or former EEHB President Jennifer LaMaster. LaMaster and the EEHB had been under investigation by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) for two years, due to allegations that club funds were being used for LaMaster’s personal expenses.

BCA Investigator Dan Michener’s summary report (dated May 21, 2024) stated, “[Special Agent] MICHENER could not identify any transactions committed by LAMASTER that would lead SA MICHENER to believe she committed theft from the EEHB account or diverted funds from the [EEHB’s] US Bank account for personal gain at the expense of the program and/or students.”­­­­­

In his declination memo, Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Nate Stumme concurred. “[Agent Michener] was able to correlate all EEHB US Bank account reimbursements to Ms. Lamaster to specific and legitimate EEHB expenses … Not a single transaction suggested that Ms. Lamaster financially benefited, misappropriated funds, or was enriched in any way.”

After reviewing the case file (obtained from the BCA via data practices request), the Monitor is concerned by the fundamental inaccuracy of these statements. No matter how we filter the data, the booster club’s payments to LaMaster’s credit card greatly exceed her booster club expenditures.

Basis of the investigation

The booster club investigation resulted from a related Duluth School District investigation. In 2021, the district hired Justin Terch to investigate allegations that Duluth East Hockey Coach Mike Randolph was abusing and bullying players. During his investigation, Terch uncovered evidence which suggested that “booster club funds were possibly being used for purposes other than those presented by booster club officials to the parents.”

In 2022, a hockey parent filed a complaint with the Duluth police, alleging they had been defrauded by the booster club. Among other things, the booster club charged parents $11,000 for a state tournament trip in 2019 and then opted not to return the fee when the team didn’t attend the tournament that year.

One of the volunteer East High School hockey coaches was also a Duluth police officer. To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the Duluth Police Department referred the investigation to the state BCA. BCA Special Agent Dan Michener investigated the allegations in the Terch Report.

The credit card transactions

According to the Terch Report, Jennifer LaMaster used her personal Capital One credit card for both personal and booster club expenses, and she periodically used booster club funds to pay her credit card bills. Agent Michener executed search warrants to obtain both LaMaster’s credit card statements and the booster club’s banking records for the years 2019-2021.

According to Michener, LaMaster charged a total of $295,404.25 on her Capital One credit card during the three-year period—more than 2,000 transactions in all. She used $190,216 in booster club funds for credit card payments during that same period and she used her own funds to pay the remainder.

In an effort to confirm that the sum of the booster club charges matched the amount of club funds LaMaster used for payments, the Monitor extracted the data from the credit card statements and converted it into a pivot table. We then reviewed each individual charge to determine if it was a legitimate booster club expenditure.

Booster club expenses

The majority of booster club charges were easy to identify. All bus, printing, promotional, and ice arena transactions were classified as booster club charges. Hotel and restaurant bills which coincided with the hockey team’s road games were also classified as booster club charges.

Even though only some of the 52 Sam’s Club credit card transactions coincided with scheduled hockey events, we assigned all 52 of them (the sum of which was $6,813) to the booster club.

LaMaster spent a total of $17,571 at Play It Again Sports and Dick’s Sporting Goods between 2019 and 2021. Although her two sons were hockey players, it is possible that some of these charges were booster club charges. In the absence of more information, we assigned the entire $17,571 to the booster club.

In total, we identified 235 likely booster club transactions on LaMaster’s credit card. The cumulative total of these transactions was $151,048.

Because LaMaster paid her credit card bills using $190,216 from the booster club, our analysis suggests that a minimum of $39,168 in booster club funds paid for LaMaster’s personal expenses.

$190,216 – $151,048 = $39,168

Personal expenses

The remaining 1,823 transactions appeared to be LaMaster’s personal charges, which included inexpensive purchases and larger expenditures:

• 32 hotel transactions ($9,009)

• 18 payments to Krenzen Auto ($7,250)

• 14 Optavia purchases ($4,096)

• 20 Lulu Lemon purchases ($2,970)

• 15 airline purchases ($2,569)

• 4 car rentals ($1,605)

LaMaster also added her son as an authorized user on the Capital One account. He spent a total of $10,035 between 2019 and 2021.

Because LaMaster carried a balance and occasionally missed her monthly payment due date, she also accrued $5,555 in interest and finance charges during the three-year period.

Loose ends

For some reason, during his two-year investigation, Agent Michener never attempted to ascertain whether the booster club’s credit card payments matched their transactions. Although he asked LaMaster questions about checks she had written, he did not ask her to clearly identify the booster club charges on her credit card statements.

On April 4, 2023, when Michener obtained the credit card statements from Capital One, he wrote in his report, “SA MICHENER will organize the transactions by month, summarizing transactions believed/verified to be expenses for the East End Hockey Boosters Club (EEHB).” However, the file provided to the Monitor contains no evidence that Michener actually did this.

In April 2024, Michener conducted an interview with LaMaster and Dawn Paine, a fellow booster club member. He summarized the women’s explanation of club finances in his report:

The EEHB spent time and money purchasing bus upgrades. This would mean a coach bus was rented rather than a school district bus, which offered more room for the students and coaching staff. The EEHB covered hotels and meals for the students, including stops for longer out-of-town games …

Both explained running the EEHB was costly and that, even during Covid, there were still activities conducted for the students … The need for funds could dramatically increase based on how much travel the team did and if they made it to larger playoff games or the state championships held in St. Paul, travel, food and hotel expenses increased significantly.

Michener did not press LaMaster or Paine for receipts (or alternative supporting documentation) for the booster club transactions, nor did he ask them to explain any of the credit card charges.

In his declination memo, Assistant St. Louis County Prosecutor Nate Stumme wrote, “[Agent Michener] was able to correlate all EEHB US Bank account reimbursements to Ms. Lamaster to specific and legitimate EEHB expenses.” It is unclear how Stumme arrived at this conclusion. If Agent Michener did correlate expenses and reimbursements, this information was not included in the data provided to the Monitor.

The BCA weighs in

On Feb. 24, 2025, the Monitor emailed Agent Dan Michener a request for comment, carbon-copying Minnesota Department of Public Safety Deputy Superintendent of Investigative Services Scott Mueller, St. Louis County Attorney Kim Maki and Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Nate Stumme on the message.

You stated that, during the years 2019-2021, Jennifer LaMaster put $295,404.25 in charges on her personal Capital One credit card. Some of these were personal charges and some were booster club charges. You further state that LaMaster paid her credit card bills during that period using $190,216 from the booster club account.

I have reviewed the more than 2,000 transactions for those years and identified those which I believe are booster club charges. I only came up with approximately $152,000 in booster club charges during that period–not $190,216. This strongly suggests that LaMaster used booster club funds to pay personal expenses. If you have another explanation, I am eager to hear it.

On Feb. 25, Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer Jill Oliveira replied:

Hello John,

With every investigation, the BCA is held to a standard that goes beyond suspicions or concern to what we can demonstrate through evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

The BCA conducted a thorough investigation which was reviewed by two St. Louis County prosecutors. Our case file was also shared with an IRS investigator and the Dept. of Revenue.

While Ms. LaMaster did co-mingle the funds, it is not a crime if there is no evidence money was stolen.

On Feb. 24, the Monitor emailed Jennifer LaMaster our spreadsheet of her Capital One transactions, with booster club transactions highlighted, and invited her to advise us of any corrections.

As of publication, LaMaster has not responded.

Conclusion

In the course of this investigation, the Monitor has come to realize that the majority of parents involved in this matter do not want to admit they were defrauded. If their booster club dues financed LaMaster’s Florida vacations and Lulu Lemon steals, they would rather not hear about it.

Other parents, however, are still holding out for the truth, and the evidence speaks for itself.

Attached for your review is a spreadsheet of LaMaster’s 2019-2021 Capital One credit card transactions. Those which the Monitor classified as booster club charges are marked with a Y.

LaMaster Capital One Expenses, 2019-2021 (arranged largest to smallest). Click arrows on lower left to navigate pages.