Ex-Tech thief charged in Cobb, too

A former Georgia Tech employee serving time in federal prison for using her state-issued credit card to fund a five-year personal shopping spree now faces felony theft charges in Cobb County.

Donna Renee Gamble, 43, is serving a 32-month sentence in a Florida medium-security prison for charging 3,800 items valued at more than $316,000 on a state-issued credit card from April 2002 through April 2007.

Gamble is accused of stealing nearly $12,000 while serving as treasurer of the Marietta Middle School Band Boosters Club in 2006, according to a Nov. 7 Cobb County Sheriff’s Department arrest warrant. It is not clear from the warrant when the charges came to light.

The Marietta woman wrote 30 checks from the booster club’s United Community Bank account to her and her husband, Mickey Gamble, according to the warrant. The money was allegedly deposited into the couple’s Wachovia account.

Gamble is serving time at the FCI Coleman Medium prison in Central Florida, according to the federal prison Web site. She is scheduled for release on Jan. 30, 2011. An attempt to reach Mickey Gamble Monday night was unsuccessful. Donna Gamble’s attorney, Jimmy Berry, also could not be reached Monday night. Donna Gamble worked as an administrative coordinator at Tech’s Parker H. Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience. In August, she entered a guilty plea to 22 counts of theft.

Authorities said she used a National Science Foundation grant to buy such items as foosball tables, a personal watercraft, a popcorn machine, a wide-screen TV and football tickets at Auburn University in Alabama. Her actions went unnoticed until August 2007 when a tipster called Georgia Tech auditors.