Evansville man accused of stealing $18k while leading organization

HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – An Evansville man was arrested and charged with three felony counts of theft after authorities say he made thousands of dollars in unauthorized purchases while he was the president of the Golfmoor Baseball Association.

According to an affidavit, Police began an investigation into unauthorized purchases and activities in February of 2024 after a review of the concessions account during the time that Sean Hopple was president of the organization. Some of these purchases included a vehicle headlight, dog food and a video game controller.

During an interview with police, Hopple admitted to using Golfmoor’s debit card to purchase a headlight by mistake and said he may have purchased personal items at other times by mistake. When shown a list of purchases made online using the account, Hopple said he was aware that personal purchases were being made using the card.

Police also say Hopple wrote checks to his business, KMA, which he claimed was used to reimburse payments made to umpires and concession workers. Police noted that when some of these checks were cashed, the KMA account had a balance of $0 or sometimes even a negative amount, which they suspected may have been done to avoid overdraft fees. Police also say a $150 check was made from Golfmoor to KMA for “repairs”, but no purchases made in the days leading up to the deposit seemed related to the repairs.

The board for Golfmoor Baseball reported the total amount for unauthorized purchased and unauthorized checks made out to KMA as $18,133.19.

Hopple was arrested and booked into the Vanderburgh County Jail on Friday. He is being held on a $1,000 bond.

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