Three former employees of St. John Bosco High School have filed a lawsuit against the all male Bellflower Catholic school alleging discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against the Salesian Society and its highly decorated football coach Jason Negro.
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last month alleges Negro embezzled money from the Catholic school for years and had assistant coaches pay the tuition for prized players in cash, saying the payments were from “anonymous donors.”
Plaintiffs Brian Wickstrom, Melanie Marcaurel and Derek Barraza allege that they were improperly fired last year and seek restitution, reinstatement and unspecified punitive and general damages for emotional distress. Wickstrom was the St. John Bosco president and chief executive from July 2020 until July 2024, Macaurel was the chief financial officer from February 2023 until July 2024, and Barraza was vice president of technology from August 2021 until September 2024.
The lawsuit describes the school in being in danger of “shutting down” and were forced to lay off 17 employees and the finances were in a difficult place.
Bosco had ended the 2019-2020 school year approximately $1,000,000 in the red – with a deficit of approximately $70,000 a month.
“In approximately March, 2023, Marcaurel was new to her position as SJBHS’s CFO and was trying to learn about all of the different programs at SJBHS and their finances. Marcaurel was in charge of the business office of SJBHS and was also responsible for ensuring accurate accounting for all SJBHS’s programs and incorporating all programs onto Bosco’s consolidated financials. Marcaurel met with the head football coach, Jason Negro, to better understand the football programs finances.”
“Negro informed Marcaurel that most of the expenses for the football program were paid in cash and even showed her the inside of the safe in his office where a large amount of cash was being stored. According to Negro, it was “easier” to just pay in cash to avoid the delay for reimbursements and other inconveniences of running expenses through SJBHS’s business office.”
As Plaintiff Marcaurel began to review the situation more carefully, she discovered that much of the revenues for ancillary programs run by Negro and the football program were all cash enterprises with no accounting of the money received or expended either internally or in cooperation with SJBHS’s business office. This included the football camp and football training programs, a home game raffle, home game parking receipts, and home game programs.
Numerous enterprises that were part of each home football game generated significant income – all in cash – and all of this cash appeared to just go into Negro’s safe to be used exclusively by Negro with no accounting or accountability.
Negro also reportedly received a large amount of athletic equipment through the football program’s contract with Nike.
Read the full court filing here.
