Story by Ethan
On April 2nd, 2026, the arrest of Donna Eckert, age 66, was announced by Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly. Donna Eckert was charged with first and second-degree Grand Larceny. The arrest and charges against Donna Eckert were a result of an investigation handled by the Nassau County Police Department, Hempstead UFSD, the Escondido Police Department, and the San Diego County Attorney’s Office.
According to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, on February 14th, 2024, the IT department at a local Hempstead K-12 public charter school had discovered the finance director’s email to be compromised and replaced with a forged email that would be sent to the Hempstead Union Free School District. The discovery of the fraudulent email stemmed from the Hempstead Union Free School District receiving an email from the fake address requesting an electronic payment to be made for a new bank account named “DME Unlimited”. This led to the Hempstead Union Free School District transferring $3,500,000 to the DME Unlimited account under the belief that it belonged to the aforementioned charter school. After further investigation it was determined that the DME Unlimited account belonged to Donna Eckert.
Later on February 2nd, 2024, surveillance video gathered during the investigation depicted the defendant allegedly retrieving $25,000 from the DME Unlimited account from a bank teller in Escondido, California. Bank records corroborate this evidence as they showed $25,000 being withdrawn from the DME Unlimited account on February 2nd, 2024. In addition to the withdrawal Donna Eckert was observed on surveillance footage at another bank teller in San Marcos, California, handing $25,000 in cash to be deposited into her personal bank account. On February 5th, 2024, the defendant was seen again at the bank in Escondido, California, to allegedly withdraw $313,000 from the DME Unlimited account before traveling to the bank in Marcos, California to deposit it into her personal account via cashier’s check. The investigation alleges that in total Donna Eckert transferred a total of $338,000 of the approximately $3,500,000 deposited into the DME Unlimited account that have been allegedly put into her personal bank account. The Escondido Police Department arrested the defendant on March 10th, 2026, before her extradition back to New York on April 1st, 2026.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office stated that the charges against Donna Eckert are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
