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A bookkeeper recently resigned from an Aspen homeowners association after she confessed to theft and reimbursed them with a cashier’s check for just over $200,000, according to an email and people knowledgeable about the situation.
The board of directors representing the HOA for Burlingame Ranch I Condominiums accepted the payment from Elizabeth Stewart, who confessed to embezzling $183,000 in HOA funds as the organization’s bookkeeper. Stewart had been outsourced by the HOA and is not a Burlingame resident.
The matter did not come to the attention of law-enforcement authorities; instead, the HOA board negotiated a deal with Stewart, who lives in the midvalley. Stewart gave the board a cashier’s check for $201,503 on Jan. 13, according to Steven Miller, president of the Burlingame HOA. The check cleared this week.
“The board agreed to accept Elizabeth’s repayment of the stolen funds and not press charges first,” Miller said in a statement given to the Aspen Daily News on Thursday. “The primary concern as board members is to uphold our fiduciary duty and make our finances whole. We are continuing to investigate our books and communicate with law enforcement about next steps, now that the check has cleared.”
The HOA board on Jan. 17 sent an email about the development to residents of the 84-unit employee-housing community, the first of a three-phase development of Burlingame Ranch about 3.5 miles west of downtown Aspen.
“At the end of December, Elizabeth voluntarily resigned from her role as bookkeeper, relinquished access to the HOA’s Quickbooks and bookkeeping email account and admitted to embezzling $183,000 of the Association's money,” the board’s message says. “She admitted to her theft, which started soon after her hiring, throughout 2023 and into 2024. In an effort to amend her wrongdoing, she has repaid the HOA a sum, plus interest, of $201,503. She has agreed to be held accountable for the cost of having our finances reviewed and to repay any additional theft or misappropriation tied to her conduct that the board uncovers.”
A text message and voice message left with Stewart on Thursday were not acknowledged or returned.
The recent development with Stewart flipped the script she had presented to the Burlingame residents in October, when she claimed their HOA board was incompetent and worked at the behest of Will Rutledge, the property manager. Stewart and others also expressed dismay that Rutledge could not account for receipts and invoices related to operations management of the first phase of Burlingame.
The board’s email to the residents addressed those claims.
“In October, the Association’s former bookkeeper, Elizabeth Stewart, began making broad and baseless accusations of theft against the property manager and corruption against the HOA Board. Ensuing communications from her and additional parties continued to amplify the claim that theft had been occurring, despite denial of those claims by the Board and the eventual compilation of the unaccounted-for receipts from the manager. In November, the Association regained access to its bank accounts that Elizabeth had been refusing access to and began to review prior transactions, including numerous unapproved payments made by Elizabeth to herself. The Board spent a few weeks investigating, seeking answers from Elizabeth and attempting to put together the full story.”
Stewart last fall accused Rutledge of being uncooperative with her efforts to respond to a records request from two homeowners seeking the HOA’s financial history for the last three years.
When Rutledge asked Stewart for the information in an electronic format that can be edited for changes, she resisted and sent an email to Aspen city officials, two newspapers and some local attorneys.
With the subject line “BG1 | ISSUE OF CORRUPTION,” the email called out four board members by name who “have taken no part in this records request, have provided zero leadership, and Will is so far up their asses that they are incapable of speaking or thinking for themselves. BG1, in actuality, is being run by Will Rutledge. I raised concerns verbally and in writing about Will’s invoices on many occasions, and my concerns were continuously ignored by the Board. The homeowners themselves have attended meetings wanting to see Will’s invoices and raise concerns about how they are treated by him — again, ignored.”
Those board members were not officeholders in 2023, which is when Stewart fleeced most of the funds by writing checks to herself but entering them differently in the HOA’s ledgers.
“In stark contrast to Elizabeth’s voluntary admission of embezzlement, the accusations of theft and framing of Will Rutledge as having carried out those same crimes need to be put to rest,” the board’s message says. “As a community, we should publicly thank and acknowledge the loyalty exhibited by Will throughout these last few months. Despite the unfounded accusations and negativity towards him, Will has remained committed to his job, our Association and to a high level of professionalism.”
Rutledge declined to talk about transpirations and his only comment concerned an Aspen Times article about the issue when it surfaced in October.
“It is unfortunate that the Aspen Times Enquirer handled the situation in the way they did,” he said.
Aspen Times Editor in Chief Ray Erku stood by the story.
“The Aspen Times was doing their journalistic duty reporting on individual with many complaints that were brought up against him and it would have been remiss of us not to report on it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the board’s email message said its repeated efforts last year to gain access to the HOA’s bank accounts, Quickbooks and financial reports met resistance from Stewart.
“We will not put ourselves and our association in that position again,” the board’s message said, noting that its treasurer is cleaning up the HOA books before their newly hired bookkeeper joins.
“We will enact stricter financial controls and oversight for the HOA’s accounts and bookkeeping than was previously in place, to help ensure proper management of our money moving forward,” the message said.
Stewart grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley, is a graduate of Aspen High School and a 2012 graduate of the University of Colorado in Boulder, according to a resume with her application for a board position on the Aspen-Pitkin Housing Authority’s board of directors. She has held multiple professional jobs in Aspen, according to the resume, which was submitted in 2019.