A seven-year vision to improve life for people on St. Thomas still lives for a former resident whose efforts met with setbacks and a long-awaited recovery. Kimberly Shumaker credits the work of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for helping her recover charitable contributions once earmarked for hurricane relief.
Shumaker, a former bartender at Frenchman’s Reef Resort, said she recently received an $8,500 restitution check from the U.S. government. The payment was recovered from a judgment arising from the conviction and sentencing of Alexandra Smyth on March 14. Smyth, at the time, was the founder of Perfect Balance Accounting Services, LLC and Perfect Heart, Inc. — described as a multipurpose nonprofit organization founded in 2018.
But it wasn’t long before some customers and business partners discovered the funds they trusted to the two enterprises were being channeled into Smyth’s private bank account. Disgruntled by revelations of fraud, Shumaker and others mounted a social media campaign to recruit like-minded victims.
Shumaker said it was hard at times to believe that justice — including restitution — would come through. Almost seven years had passed, and she’d moved away from the V.I. “There were times when I was like, ‘How much longer can I continue to ring alarm bells and let people know what was going on?’” she said.
Months of efforts produced results: complaints filed with law enforcement led to an indictment and Smyth’s guilty plea on Sept. 20, 2023. At sentencing, the defendant was ordered to pay restitution.
A source at the federal prosecutor’s office who asked not to be named said restitution is a routine judgment ordered as part of sentencing in criminal cases. “… [P]articularly restitution for fraud cases as part of the sentence if the judge finds you guilty. The judge might order them to pay back,” the source said.
But, they said, the effort to repay victims doesn’t stop there. It’s up to the U.S. Justice Department’s Financial Litigation Unit to enforce the judgment. “Our job is to try and collect that money; we have to demonstrate the loss to the victim. The money goes to the court, and the court issues a check,” they said.
The check came through on Sept. 27, Shumaker said. By then, the territory was still recovering from the wreckage of hurricanes Irma and Maria. Like Shumaker, many uninsured homeowners were still waiting to be made whole in 2024.
Progress appeared for them with help from the Office of Disaster Recovery. By late September, repairs for 35 homes were completed, 47 more had repairs underway and 40 more were approved for reconstruction.
But by then, and with restitution in hand, Shumaker said she’d hit on a new idea. “When the hurricane started I knew I wanted to do something. The first idea was to help hurricane survivors living under tarps by providing sustainable roofing; the original idea was to spread sustainable building practices in the Caribbean.”
Now, she said, the funds will support the longstanding effort of a friend to improve a public park in Estate Frydenhoj. St. Thomas musician Jon Gazi described a plan to revitalize the Ezra Fredericks Ballpark. Gazi said the idea of creating a skate park for St. Thomas youth began more than 20 years ago when he was still in high school.
Now, he said, “it’s happening. We’re community-funded; we reached out to local companies and individuals to raise funds to build the park. We’ve raised about a million dollars between materials, contributions and funds, and one of the people who got wind of that was Kimberly, who’s this old friend of mine — one of the many who used to play all the time. One of the venues we used to play at when she was working on island,” he said.
“She was raising funds to repurpose the roofs after the storm, and she learned about the skate and bike park, so she reached out to see what she could do,” Gazi said.
Roofing made from recycled materials — the original concept — will now be used to provide cover for the fields’ repurposed bullpens as a place where children and families can sit and relax in a covered area, Shumaker said.
“A community park benefits an entire public and the entire island,” she said.
