A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted a former Chelsea High School football coach of multiple larceny charges for withdrawing thousands of dollars from the team’s bank account over a period of years to pay for personal expenses, including vacations and debts, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

Jurors found JAMES ATKINS (D.O.B. 7/7/65) guilty of five counts of larceny over $250, and one count of larceny by check. Jurors acquitted Atkins of a sixth charge of larceny over $250. Judge Judith Fabricant scheduled sentencing for 9 a.m. tomorrow.

“Today a jury held James Atkins to account for betraying his oath as a police officer and his abuse of the public trust – most especially the trust placed in him by so many kids in the Chelsea community,” Conley said. “James Atkins was once a police sergeant, a football coach, and a mentor to so many students. Not anymore. Through his own greed and selfishness, he threw it all away.”

Assistant District Attorney Edward Beagan, chief of the trial team that prosecutes fraud, corruption, and white collar crime for District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, proved that Atkins, a Chelsea Police sergeant currently suspended from duty, used his position as a head coach and president of the Chelsea High School football team to embezzle almost $10,000 from a bank account meant to support the team’s expenses – funds that had been raised in large part by the young players’ families.

During the trial, Beagan proved to jurors that Atkins made cash withdrawals at different times of day and night, by using an ATM card connected to the team’s bank account.

Records of the withdrawals indicated that Atkins withdrew $500 at about 1:40 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2006, from an ATM – a location that is across the rotary from a Revere strip club; additional three-figure withdrawals near the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut and the Seabrook Greyhound Park dog racing track in New Hampshire within a five-day period shortly thereafter; and in Bessemer, Alabama, where Atkins’ grandmother lives, in July 2006.

Atkins also used the account’s ATM card in February 2005 to pay a $634 bar tab at the Champions Sports Bar located in Boston’s Marriott Copley Place hotel.

Parents of students who were on the team and were very active in fundraising first brought their concerns to the school, when they noticed that after several fundraising events, Atkins would take the cash they had earned for the team and would place it in his pocket, without providing them with a receipt or other written notation of the funds.

Their concerns prompted an investigation by the Chelsea Police Department and Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to Conley’s office.

In January of 2007, Atkins attended a meeting with Chelsea High School students’ parents and the school’s athletic director. In that meeting, Atkins agreed to repay $8,200 over a series of installments.

Instead, Atkins visited a respected community member who had made charitable donations in the past and asked for another donation. That donor gave him a check for $1,000 for the Chelsea High School football booster club – which Atkins tried to apply to his outstanding debt.

Atkins was represented by Attorney Douglas Louison. Sentencing will be in courtroom 817 of Suffolk Superior Court.