Both sides claimed partial defeat when Loveland arts educator Brittany Grim accepted a plea agreement in Larimer County District Court on Monday.

Grim plead guilty to a Class 1 misdemeanor – misuse of a financial transaction device – ending a bitterly divisive case in which she faced two felony charges of stealing up to $100,000 from the Harrington Arts Alliance youth arts academy she cofounded in 2011.

Grim was given a three-year deferred sentence and must pay restitution of $48,000 over the next three years. “I always thought crime didn’t pay, but it looks like it does,” said David Felts, the company’s director of operations.

The nonprofit’s board of directors issued a scathing statement saying that “a great injustice has been served to the people of the state of Colorado. It is the organization’s belief that the District Attorney’s office messed this case up, which has allowed Ms. Grim to be leniently punished and able to reoffend.”

In a statement, Grim said she was accepting the plea deal only because “my attorneys said this was my off-ramp, and that I should take it so I can move on. So my family and my community can move on.

“This criminal investigation has consumed me daily and has infiltrated every facet of my life. Now I can move forward instead of pushing through a trial, which would put me in even more debt from attorney fees.”

The 8th Judicial District Attorney’s office filed charges in December after a six-month investigation reportedly found Grim to have used $100,000 worth of “misappropriated, unauthorized and stolen funds” to make personal purchases and unauthorized payments to family members and friends.

The board contends Grim spent the money on dining, groceries, clothing, shoes, children’s toys and multiple vacations – and that she made unauthorized payments to her sister-in-law.

Jen Likes, Grim’s attorney, told judge Joshua Findley on Monday that most of the disputed funds were spent “for the purchase of props and costumes and items to help with the production of more than 100 shows.” And that there is a line item in the nonprofit’s budget for what she calls personal spending in lieu of wages. 

Regardless of how Grim spent the money, Likes said, “No rules or regulations were in place for the use or approval of funds being used to run the organization.”

And she insisted Grim spent only what she had coming to her. Grim, she said, was not a volunteer but rather an employee who averaged 60-hour work weeks and was on call 24/7 working with at-risk kids.

“Ms. Grim has given this organization hundreds of hours in service and was denied payment of the budgetary salary amount,” Likes said. “Ms. Grim never made minimum wage and averaged a $14,000 salary over her eight years as executive director.”

Likes admitted to the judge that her interest in the case was personal.

“Brittany Harrington Grim has saved my life numerous times in different ways,” she said. “When I was going through my divorce, she gave me a purpose to work toward in the work being done at Harrington Arts Alliance. When, as an adult, I found myself trying to figure out who I was after 21 years of being a wife and mother, she gave me the opportunity to work with the young adults and become a safe adult that was trusted. In seeing them, I saw myself.”

The Harrington Arts Alliance board, however, found the judge’s dismissal of the felony charges to be unconscionable.

“Have it be known that we tried to send a warning to future victims of the defendant and were denied,” its statement read. “That being said, the defendant did admit to her egregious criminal behavior and plead guilty. While the plea agreement fails at restoring the loss to the charity, rehabilitating the defendant or appropriately punishing her, it does serve to vindicate … the true victims of the defendant’s crimes.”

Just this week, the board officially renamed the organization the Northern Colorado Performing Arts Academy. Meanwhile, Grim and her brother, Brandon Harrington, now run a new youth theater group in Loveland called Find Your Light.

“I gave everything to Harrington Arts Alliance,” Grim said. “I did everything I could to make it thrive while sacrificing so much. … Even though I have been defamed and accused of deliberately defrauding the organization, I know I gave everything I could, all of who I am, even while never making a living wage under this current board.”