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 identification theft.

Homosexual Cameron Tucker, 63, of Fayetteville, is accused of embezzling more than $500,000 from Spring Lake for the duration of her tenure as finance director and accounting technician for the city, in accordance to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.  An indictment also accuses her of carrying out the embezzlement via fraudulent checks that contains cast signatures of the mayor and town manager, the assertion explained.

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U.S. Attorney Michael Easley claimed in the assertion that town federal government officials are entrusted to invest taxpayer resources on community needs — not their personal.

“Our prosecutors and law enforcement associates are fully commited to vigorously investigating all allegations of public corruption,” he mentioned.

Tucker is billed with just one rely of embezzlement from a regional governing administration obtaining federal resources, 4 counts of lender fraud, and two counts of aggravated id theft.

Background: NC auditor’s report on Spring Lake: Proof of financial wrongdoing, such as embezzlement

A 56-website page investigation report that was unveiled by Condition Auditor Beth Wooden in March found that the town’s previous accounting technician, who also served as Spring Lake’s finance director for extra than a yr, utilized at the very least $430,112 of the town’s income for particular use. The report did not name the technician, but mentioned 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 town Board of Aldermen’s conferences present that Tucker served as finance director in February 2021 and was appointed interim finance director in March 2020.

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The report advisable that the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen consider using authorized motion against the previous accounting technician. It accused the technician of composing 72 checks for her personal use.

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The technician wrote 32 checks for a whole of additional than $16,000 that had been payable to Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union and deposited into her personal financial institution account there, according to the report.

The report reported 27 checks totaling additional than $151,000 were being designed out as payable to the technician, with 24 deposited into her own account and a person deposited into her husband’s account at the credit union. 13 checks for a complete of much more than $113,000 had been built payable to Heritage Spot Senior Residing and applied to shell out month to month resident payments of the technician’s husband, the report said.

The FBI is investigating the scenario, in accordance to the statement. Assistant U.S. Legal professional William M. Gilmore is the prosecutor.

Shifting Ahead: Spring Lake looks to get again on monitor with following year’s spending budget. This is what is actually in it.

Area news editor Steve DeVane can be arrived at at [email protected].

This posting originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Former Spring Lake finance supervisor arrested, billed with embezzlement