State Auditor Shad White announced last week that Special Agents from his office have arrested Stephanie Churchill of Benton County. Churchill, the former Town Clerk of Hickory Flat, was indicted for embezzlement by a local grand jury. A $104,256.92 demand letter was presented to Churchill upon her arrest. The demand amount includes interest and investigative expenses.
Churchill is accused of embezzling Hickory Flat’s Water and Sewage Department funds by not depositing the funds collected from water and sewage bills from October 2018 through February 2021.
“This is, once again, another case where money intended to pay for water in a small town was embezzled,” said Auditor White. “It resulted in a big loss for the people of Hickory Flat.”
If convicted, Churchill will face up to 20 years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines. All persons arrested by the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The case will be prosecuted by the office of District Attorney Ben Creekmore.
A $50,000 surety bond covers Churchill’s employment as the Town Clerk of Hickory Flats. Surety bonds are similar to insurance designed to protect taxpayers from corruption. Churchill will remain liable for the full amount of the demand in addition to criminal proceedings.
“My office investigates these matters, identifying the facts, but we only make arrests when prosecutors choose to charge someone,” said White. “We cannot make that choice for them. We also do not control sentences. Courts do that. But when we all work together, taxpayers see results, like in this case.”
In a similar investigation two former Coahoma Community College employees were caught in one of the largest embezzlement schemes at that time after a year of investigation by the state auditor’s office in September 2018.
According White at a press conference in the Coahoma County Courthouse at the time the charges were announced, the investigation concluded Stacie Neal from the CCC accounts payable business office and administrative assistant Gwendolyn Jefferson embezzled an estimated $758,000 from 2013-17. The embezzled amount, plus the $194,000 interest and $28,000 cost for the investigation add up to the $981,600.64 Neal and Jefferson are being told to pay back $981,600.64.
At the time the investigation was announced, White said the auditor’s office only deals with civil matters and district attorney Brenda Mitchell will make the decision on whether to file charges and prosecute.
“What that file is going to detail is that, from at least 2013 to 2017, these two individuals who were working in purchasing at the community college, were taking government procurement cards and they were going to Kroger,” White said. “They were going to Walmart, here in Clarksdale. They were going on Amazon. Many times, they were swiping the cards. They were purchasing gift cards from the stores. They would take those gift cards and do whatever they wanted to with them.”
White said multiple cards were being used and, as Neal and Jefferson kept everything a secret, the amount of money they were spending increased. He added they were going on to the Amazon website and purchasing items such as watches, shoes and a chandelier.
“That makes this the largest individual demand coming from our office in the past five years,” White said at the time the investigation broke, adding it is the third-largest last 20 years and possibly longer, but the records only go so far back.
Mitchell said, if there is a prosecution, it would be in Coahoma County, but the timetable is a question mark.
That case is pending in Coahoma County Circuit Court and no repayment has been made at this time.
Kappi Allen, former executive director of the Coahoma County Tourism Commission, pleaded guilty to embezzlement at a hearing in Circuit Judge Al Smith’s courtroom in Cleveland Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020. She is paying off her demand.
Clarksdale Public Utilities office manager Maple Melton has been indicted on nine counts of embezzlement. A formal demand in the amount of $3,871.92 was issued on Dec. 14, 2015. On March 17, 2017, this case was transmitted to the Office of the Attorney General. For Fiscal Year 2021, no payments have been received. Melton is also currently awaiting trial.
The prosecution and Allen both agreed Allen embezzled more than $25,000, which means, according to Smith, the maximum sentence is 20 years in prison or a $25,000 fine.However, the amount of money Allen embezzled while in her position with the tourism commission is still in question. She was charged with embezzling $93,345.34 — more than $56,000 in funds and more than $35,000 for other things such as taking her granddaughter to Disney World.
Allen has been paying restitution as part of her plea and probation agreement with the state.
Suspected fraud can be reported to the Auditor’s office online any time by clicking the red “Report Fraud” button at www.osa.ms.gov or via telephone during normal business hours at 1-(800)-321-1275.
