Former Manatee Technical College employee charged with skimming student aid payments

A former employee at Manatee Technical College faces two felony charges after she allegedly funneled students’ money into her personal bank account, authorities said.

Daisy Gulsby, 56, reportedly used her job as a financial aid specialist to steal between $106,000 and $302,000 from low-income students who needed the money to attend MTC, located at 6305 E. State Road 70 in Bradenton. The alleged scheme carried on for more than four years before a wary student reported Gulsby last April.

She soon resigned from MTC, and the ensuing investigation led deputies to charge her in late August with grand theft of the first degree and scheme to defraud more than $50,000.

Gulsby — also known as Daisy Higuera, Daisy Gonzalez or Michelle Daisy Gulsby — demanded a jury trial and pleaded not guilty on Sep. 8.

She declined to comment when reached by the Bradenton Herald on Thursday evening. Her attorney, Maria T. Chuquizuta Clarke, did not respond to an email or phone call.

Scheme involved overpayments

Low-income college students can apply for a Pell Grant through the U.S. Department of Education to help pay for their tuition and fees. When they have money left over, students can use the remaining funds to pay for transportation, housing or other personal expenses that come with attending college.

But according to the people who spoke with law enforcement, Gulsby directed MTC students to return any Pell Grant money that still remained after their tuition was covered.

The issue recently came to light after Gulsby told one student to return $2,858 using money orders, according to investigations by the school district and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

Gulsby reportedly told the student her money would be sent to Tallahassee and then reapplied to her account in the next semester.

“(The student) said that Ms. Gulsby told her to get three separate money orders because if they were for $1,000 or less, she would not be charged a fee by Amscot,” Troy Nelson, the school district investigator, said in his report.

“The student complied with this request and after several months of the credit not showing up in her account, the student began questioning what happened to the money,” the report continues.

That’s when the school district and law enforcement got involved. And according to their reports, investigators found that Gulsby wrote “MTC” on the students’ money orders, leaving space between each letter and then modifying the letters to read “Michelle Daisy Gulsby.”

“The ‘M’ in MTC was written out to be Michelle,” Detective Lorenzo Waiters Jr. reported. “The ‘T’ in MTC was altered to be the ‘D’ in Daisy. The ‘C’ in MTC was altered to be the ‘G’ in Gulsby.”

Gulsby, the detective said, pocketed 425 money orders “suspected of being from Manatee Technical College students” between 2016 and this year. The orders totaled about $302,012, according to the detective’s affidavit.

“Some money orders had notes like ‘rent’ and ‘child support’ written on them,” the affidavit states. “All of these money orders were deposited into Daisy’s bank account.”

The detective reached out to dozens of current and former MTC students and verified that $106,185 of that money was collected through deception, according to his affidavit, which goes on to say “there are many more students that I have not contacted.”

“All the contacted students were told by Daisy to give her money orders for various deceptive reasons,” the detective wrote. “These reasons include that excess Pell Grant money had to be returned to Tallahassee and excess funds had to be returned so it could be applied to the student’s next semester.”

“Additionally, she would say the funds would go into a pool at Tallahassee to help fund other student’s schooling,” the affidavit continues. “She told one student she would be arrested if she did not return the money.”

Gulsby denies the allegations

In conversations with the school district and law enforcement, Gulsby said the money orders were misconstrued.

Gulsby told investigators that she couldn’t make it to Amscot to get her own money order so she asked a student for help. According to the detective, Gulsby said she gave the student cash to pay for the money order.

When the detective asked why she received several payments, Gulsby said that she also sold the student furniture and collected the balance though money orders, according to the affidavit.

“Daisy (Gulsby) firmly stated that there were no other students who gave her money orders,” the affidavit states.

The detective also asked why the abbreviation “MTC” was modified to appear as “Michelle Daisy Gulsby” on the money orders.

Gulsby said “she always wrote her name Michelle Daisy Gulsby where the ‘D’ in Daisy had a ‘T’ written in it, and where there is a ‘C’ written within the ‘G’ for Gulsby,” the detective wrote, going on to question her statement.

“Prior to the interview, Daisy printed and signed her name on the Waiver of Constitutional Rights form after her Miranda rights were read to her,” the affidavit continues. “She printed her name as Daisy Gulsby. There was no ‘T’ within the ‘D’ for Daisy and no ‘C’ within the ‘G’ for Gulsby as she wrote on the money orders.”

School district records show that Gulsby resigned last April, before authorities charged her with two felonies in late August.

She was released on surety bonds totaling $200,000.

This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 3:14 PM.