Former Spring Lake finance director charged with embezzling more than $500K from the town

Spring Lake’s previous finance director was arrested Friday by federal authorities and billed with embezzlement, financial institution fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Homosexual Cameron Tucker, 63, of Fayetteville, is accused of embezzling a lot more than $500,000 from Spring Lake all through her tenure as finance director and accounting technician for the city, in accordance to a assertion introduced by the U.S. Legal professional for the Jap District of North Carolina.  An indictment also accuses her of carrying out the embezzlement by fraudulent checks containing cast signatures of the mayor and town supervisor, the statement claimed.

Cost TO Citizens: How a great deal has Spring Lake’s financial mishandling value its residents?

U.S. Lawyer Michael Easley stated in the statement that city governing administration officials are entrusted to invest taxpayer cash on general public demands — not their individual.

“Our prosecutors and legislation enforcement partners are committed to vigorously investigating all allegations of general public corruption,” he explained.

Tucker is charged with one count of embezzlement from a neighborhood government obtaining federal resources, 4 counts of lender fraud, and two counts of aggravated id theft.

Background: NC auditor’s report on Spring Lake: Evidence of economical wrongdoing, like embezzlement

A 56-webpage investigation report that was launched by Condition Auditor Beth Wood in March identified that the town’s former accounting technician, who also served as Spring Lake’s finance director for extra than a year, utilised at minimum $430,112 of the town’s cash for personal use. The report did not identify the technician, but reported 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 conferences show that Tucker served as finance director in February 2021 and was appointed interim finance director in March 2020.

Tale carries on

The report recommended that the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen look at having legal motion towards the former accounting technician. It accused the technician of creating 72 checks for her particular use.

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The technician wrote 32 checks for a full of more than $16,000 that were being payable to Bragg Mutual Federal Credit rating Union and deposited into her individual lender account there, according to the report.

The report explained 27 checks totaling extra than $151,000 were being designed out as payable to the technician, with 24 deposited into her individual account and a person deposited into her husband’s account at the credit union. Thirteen checks for a whole of much more than $113,000 were made payable to Heritage Put Senior Residing and employed to spend regular resident charges of the technician’s husband, the report claimed.

The FBI is investigating the situation, according to the assertion. Assistant U.S. Attorney William M. Gilmore is the prosecutor.

Moving Forward: Spring Lake appears to be to get back on monitor with following year’s funds. Here’s what is in it.

Nearby information editor Steve DeVane can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Previous Spring Lake finance manager arrested, billed with embezzlement