Golf pro Kelley Brooke accuses partner at Bethpage golf course of stealing $300K and trying to to frame others, including autistic teen

The renowned golf instructor who runs Bethpage golf course’s pro shop is accusing her former business partner of embezzling more than $300,000 — then trying to frame others for his crimes, including a teenager with autism and a dead employee.Kelley Brooke, who was named 2018’s LPGA Professional of the Year, claimed in the lawsuit that the firm’s former vice president, Paul O’Donoghue, pocketed loads of cash during his six years managing the pro shop at Bethpage State Park Golf Course on Long Island.The schemes were innumerable, the lawsuit said, and involved O’Donoghue employing nefarious measures to get his hands on extra dough — such as stealing money from fictitious golf cart rental refunds at the Farmingdale complex.“On more than two thousand occasions over six years, O’Donoghue pocketed Pro Shop cash receipts before they were to be deposited into Bethpage Golf’s bank account,” said the suit filed Wednesday in Nassau County Supreme Court.O’Donoghue allegedly issued more than 1,000 cash refunds for golf cart rental customers — “even though Bethpage Golf had a strict policy prohibiting cash refunds,” the complaint said.He covered up this trail of deceit by creating fake debits in Bethpage’s point-of-sale system under the names of his unwitting employees — including a teenager with autism who worked a range ball picker machine, the suit said.O’Donoghue allegedly nabbed 17 payments that he recorded as have been made by the teen — even though the kid didn’t have access to the system or its registers, the lawsuit said.He also pocketed 18 cash payments in 2022 and 2023 that were “made” by an employee who had died the year before; took another series of payments made by someone who’d left the job in 2020; and other payments he claimed were made by an out-of-state bookkeeper who never actually went to the park, the suit said.“As a result of O’Donoghue’s fraudulent schemes, involving the theft of more than three hundred ...