This Kentucky county treasurer stole $161,000. She faces prison after guilty plea.
A former Jackson County treasurer has pleaded guilty in a case in which she was accused of stealing $161,000 by writing unauthorized checks to herself.
Beth N. Sallee, 38, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to one charge of wire fraud and one charge of aggravated identity theft.
The plea agreement in the case includes $161,808 in restitution to the county.
The wire-fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Sallee’s sentence is likely to be considerably less under advisory sentencing guidelines, but she faces a mandatory two-year sentence on the identity-theft charge to be served in addition to any prison sentence U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom hands down on the wire-fraud charge.
The indictment in the case charged that Sallee stole $161,808 by writing checks to herself, and that she tried to cover up the crime by removing pages from financial documents.
The grand jury indicted Sallee on theft, wire fraud and identity theft charges. The wire-fraud charges came in because of electronic bank transfers to cover the checks Sallee wrote.
Sallee allegedly forged the names of two other county employees on checks in order to defeat a safeguard requiring two signatures on checks.
Sallee also tried to cover her crimes by obscuring page numbers on financial documents, and asked the Jackson County Bank to remove scanned images of checks that were supposed to go to auditors, the indictment charged.
The charges grew from state audits that concluded Sallee wrote herself 26 additional checks, on top of the 24 she was supposed to receive, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2015, and also took money from a federal grant the county receives to prepare for emergencies.
Even as she was taking the money, Sallee allowed county bills to go unpaid, costing taxpayers extra money for interest and late fees, an audit found.
Sallee was treasurer during a turbulent period when audits found significant problems in the county’s accounting and finances.
Then-Sheriff Denny Peyman arrested Sallee and William O. Smith, who was judge-executive at the time, in January 2014 based on audit findings that Paymen said justified forgery and other charges.
A prosecutor dismissed the charges.
Peyman also faced audits critical of his bookkeeping, and in September 2017, after he left office, Kentucky State Police charged him with cultivating marijuana and trafficking in steroids.
A grand jury did not return charges in the case, according to a court record.