Former Spring Lake finance director charged with embezzling more than $500K from the town
Spring Lake’s former finance director was arrested Friday by federal authorities and charged with embezzlement, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Homosexual Cameron Tucker, 63, of Fayetteville, is accused of embezzling much more than $500,000 from Spring Lake in the course of her tenure as finance director and accounting technician for the town, in accordance to a assertion produced by the U.S. Legal professional for the Jap District of North Carolina. An indictment also accuses her of carrying out the embezzlement as a result of fraudulent checks containing forged signatures of the mayor and city manager, the assertion stated.
Price tag TO Inhabitants: How substantially has Spring Lake’s economic mishandling price its citizens?
U.S. Lawyer Michael Easley stated in the statement that metropolis authorities officers are entrusted to commit taxpayer resources on general public needs — not their personal.
“Our prosecutors and regulation enforcement associates are fully commited to vigorously investigating all allegations of general public corruption,” he reported.
Tucker is billed with just one count of embezzlement from a local authorities acquiring federal cash, four counts of bank fraud, and two counts of aggravated identification theft.
Track record: NC auditor’s report on Spring Lake: Evidence of financial wrongdoing, including embezzlement
A 56-web page investigation report that was launched by State Auditor Beth Wooden in March uncovered that the town’s previous accounting technician, who also served as Spring Lake’s finance director for much more than a calendar year, made use of at the very least $430,112 of the town’s income for personalized use. The report did not title the technician, but claimed in the footnotes that she served as the town’s finance director from March 2020 to April 2021 and as interim finance director from March 2020 to September 2020.
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Minutes of the city Board of Aldermen’s meetings display that Tucker served as finance director in February 2021 and was appointed interim finance director in March 2020.
The report advisable that the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen take into account getting authorized motion against the previous accounting technician. It accused the technician of creating 72 checks for her own use.
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The technician wrote 32 checks for a whole of extra than $16,000 that have been payable to Bragg Mutual Federal Credit history Union and deposited into her own lender account there, according to the report.
The report stated 27 checks totaling more than $151,000 had been manufactured out as payable to the technician, with 24 deposited into her individual account and one deposited into her husband’s account at the credit score union. 13 checks for a full of much more than $113,000 have been designed payable to Heritage Area Senior Dwelling and applied to fork out monthly resident bills of the technician’s partner, the report mentioned.
The FBI is investigating the case, according to the assertion. Assistant U.S. Lawyer William M. Gilmore is the prosecutor.
Transferring Ahead: Spring Lake appears to be to get back on observe with subsequent year’s budget. This is what is in it.
Community information editor Steve DeVane can be attained at [email protected]
This posting originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Previous Spring Lake finance supervisor arrested, charged with embezzlement