Former Director of Meigs Co. E911 District misappropriated more than $1 million

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people in charge of funds and especially governmental monies think they are invincible and won’t get caught if involved in thievery. 

I get an e-mail just about once a week where somebody has been caught taking funds that don’t belong to them.

I received the worst one I believe that I have ever gotten just the other day that popped up on my e-mail.

An investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office has revealed that the former director of the Meigs County Emergency Communications District (E911) misappropriated at least $1,084,188.60 between July 2011 and February 2021.

The results of the investigation have been communicated to the Office of the District Attorney General of the ninth Judicial; however, no charges are expected to be filed due to the former director’s death on February 21, 2021.

 Ten years is a long time and the person probably thought they had gotten away with it.

Comptroller investigators determined the former director misappropriated the vast majority of the district’s money by falsifying invoices from both real and fictitious vendors and then cashing district checks that were written to pay these phony invoices.

 In some instances, the former director also forged the signatures of board members on checks and forged the signature endorsements of vendors to cash these checks.

 The former director also provided falsified budget-to-actual financial reports to the board. The reports omitted expenditures to conceal the former director’s misappropriation and were meant to convince the board that the district’s spending was within budget.

 Additionally, investigators discovered the former director received a duplicate travel reimbursement, and used work-assigned assets, such as a work cell phone, for personal use.

 “The district’s board must ensure it provides adequate oversight to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse,” said Comptroller Mumpower. “The board allowed the former director to have complete control over the district’s financial documents and bank statements. This allowed the that person to falsify checks on a near-daily basis. The board also failed to correct 13 years of repeated audited findings related to segregation of dutie overspending.”

This just proves there has to be watch dogs checking records, etc., especially where there are thousands and millions of dollars involved.

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