UMKC Foundation employee previously featured on Netflix series arrested for felony theft

A University of Missouri-Kansas City Foundation employee, who also was featured on Netflix’s “Last Chance U,” was arrested Friday for a string of thefts that occurred over a month in Independence, Kansas, according to police.

Daniel Barwick, 54, was arrested just before 4 p.m. Friday in the 100 block of Peter Pan Road for allegedly committing at least nine thefts that occurred between Dec. 16 and Jan. 27, said Independence Police Chief Jerry Harrison in a news release.

He was booked for the felony theft charge in the Montgomery County Department of Corrections and is being held on $1,500 bail. According to police records, the majority of the thefts occurred at a local Wal-Mart, and at least one was against an individual.

In December, the UMKC School of Dentistry announced that Barwick would lead fundraising efforts as its director of philanthropic giving and the executive director of the Roy J. Rinehart Foundation. The UMKC Foundation, which hired Barwick in October, is a nonprofit separate from the university.

Barwick also previously led Independence Community College starting in 2011 until his 2019 resignation. In that time, Barwick and the school were featured on the third and fourth seasons of Netflix’s “Last Chance U,” a docuseries that follows junior college football players at various campuses.

Since late 2018, Barwick has also hosted a podcast called The Mortarboard for higher education administrators. In 2020, he published a book on small colleges and starting in 2021 worked as director of development for Indiana State University’s College of Health and Human Services before getting the UMKC position.

Independence Community College had no comment. UMKC said it would not comment further on a “confidential, personnel matter.”

The Star’s Kevin Hardy contributed to this report.