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

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

Homosexual Cameron Tucker, 63, of Fayetteville, is accused of embezzling extra than $500,000 from Spring Lake during her tenure as finance director and accounting technician for the town, in accordance to a statement launched by the U.S. Lawyer for the Eastern District of North Carolina.  An indictment also accuses her of carrying out the embezzlement by means of fraudulent checks that contains forged signatures of the mayor and city supervisor, the statement stated.

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U.S. Lawyer Michael Easley stated in the statement that town authorities officials are entrusted to spend taxpayer resources on public demands — not their very own.

“Our prosecutors and legislation enforcement companions are dedicated to vigorously investigating all allegations of community corruption,” he reported.

Tucker is billed with one rely of embezzlement from a area govt getting federal cash, four counts of financial institution fraud, and two counts of aggravated identification theft.

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A 56-web site investigation report that was released by Point out Auditor Beth Wood in March located that the town’s former accounting technician, who also served as Spring Lake’s finance director for additional than a calendar year, used at minimum $430,112 of the town’s funds for own use. The report did not identify the technician, but stated 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 display that Tucker served as finance director in February 2021 and was appointed interim finance director in March 2020.

Tale proceeds

The report encouraged that the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen think about getting authorized action from the previous accounting technician. It accused the technician of writing 72 checks for her personalized use.

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The technician wrote 32 checks for a overall of extra than $16,000 that have been payable to Bragg Mutual Federal Credit score Union and deposited into her private lender account there, in accordance to the report.

The report said 27 checks totaling a lot more than $151,000 ended up made out as payable to the technician, with 24 deposited into her personalized account and one particular deposited into her husband’s account at the credit union. Thirteen checks for a whole of more than $113,000 were being built payable to Heritage Place Senior Dwelling and employed to shell out regular monthly resident charges of the technician’s partner, the report mentioned.

The FBI is investigating the case, according to the assertion. Assistant U.S. Legal professional William M. Gilmore is the prosecutor.

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Neighborhood news editor Steve DeVane can be achieved at [email protected].

This post initially appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Former Spring Lake finance manager arrested, charged with embezzlement