FORMER SUPERINTENDENT CHARGED WITH EMBEZZLEMENT; EXOM TAKES A PLEA DEAL

Court action in Berrien County Trial Court over the last week included the arraignment of former Benton Harbor Superintendent Leonard Seawood and the sentencing of a Niles man who shot his estranged girlfriend in Niles in 2015.
Seawood was arraigned last Thursday on two felony counts, one of embezzlement $20,000 to $50,000 and one count of obtaining money by false pretenses $20,000 to $50,000. The embezzlement count is 10 year felony, while the obtaining money under false pretenses count is a 15 year felony.
Seawood was superintendent of the Benton Harbor school district from July 2010 to October 2015. The embezzlement related incidents allegedly occurred between June 2012 and April 2015. He was suspended by the Benton Harbor Board of Education on April 30, 2015 and resigned Oct. 13, 2015.
Last week’s charges came as a result of an investigation started by the school board in the spring of 2015. Board members hired the Rehmann Corporate Investigative Services firm and their findings led the Michigan State Police to start their own investigation.
The investigation uncovered information that Seawood allegedly was paid for more vacation days each year over four years than he was allowed to by contract. His contract with the school district permitted a cash payout for a maximum of five unused vacation days each year. He was allotted 25 vacation days each year.
The prosecutor’s office alleged in charging documents that Seawood received payment for 45 extra days in 2012, for 16 extra days in 2013, for nine extra days in 2014 and for five extra days in 2015. The amount of cash payouts he received over and above the five days allowed each year totalled approximately $45,000.
He is next scheduled to be in court Friday for a pre-exam conference and next Tuesday, April 27, for a preliminary hearing at the courthouse in St. Joseph. He is free on $10,000 10 percent bond.
In a sentencing last week, Michael Jerome Exom III, 30, of Niles, was sentenced to a prison term of 29 months to five years for felony domestic violence. He pleaded guilty to the charge in late January in connection with his shooting of his former girlfriend in March, 2015.
Charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a concealed weapon in an auto and possession of a firearm by a felon were dismissed in exchange for his plea.
Exom shot a woman, Gequintha Nichols, during an incident March 22, 2015 outside Gary’s Furniture Restoration and Storage on Michigan 51 North in Niles Township. Nichols, who has a child with Exom, met Exom that day at the storage facility. She was able to get to the highway to get assistance after she had been shot and he had left the scene.
Exom ended up on the run for a month and a half after the shooting incident. He was eventually apprehended by U.S. Marshals in the South Bend area. He was sentenced for domestic battery charges in Indiana and served time in prison in Indiana before he was sent back to Michigan in early 2016.
Nichols and Berrien County Sheriff’s Detective Cathy Easton testified about the events of that day in 2015 during a June 2016 preliminary hearing. Nichols said she agreed to meet Exom that day and that he talked of killing himself before she ended up being shot in the stomach.
While she said she didn’t remember if Exom shot her or if someone else was there, Easton said Nichols told her that night as well as a few days later that Exom was the one who shot her. As for Nichols’ injuries, she had to have part of her intestines, pancreas and left ovary removed.