PORT ANGELES — A lack of monitoring by the Clallam County Treasurer’s Office enabled former office cashier Catherine Betts to embezzle $617,467 in public money over a five-year period, a state Auditor’s Office fraud investigation has concluded.
But that’s not all.
The total bill for the theft scheme will cost an additional $60,067 in investigative costs and $6,000 for bank-related records, bringing the total loss to the public to $683,534, according to the report.
The amount is covered by county insurance.
In addition, report author and fraud investigator Jim Brittain, said the exact amount of misappropriated funds “cannot be determined” because records were not retained and because of missing documents, missing daily reconciliations and daily and monthly tax schedules that were nowhere to be found.
“In addition, we could not open some password-protected files,” Brittain said.
Until Betts left county employment June 1, 2009, she received and processed funds from real estate excise tax payments and other revenue sources.
Authorities have said she has moved to Shelton and is not a flight risk.
“The county did not monitor this activity, enabling her to manipulate transactions and misappropriate funds,” Brittain said.
He said that from Feb. 1, 2004, to May 19, 2009, Betts destroyed, falsified and concealed information, setting up a system that included recording false transactions and taking cash equal to the sum of those transactions.
A criminal investigation by the Port Angeles Police Department has been ongoing and will accelerate now that the Auditor’s Office report has been released, Chief Terry Gallagher said last week.
In a prepared statement responding to the report, county Treasurer Judy Scott said today that real estate excise taxes have been monitored under the same internal controls for more than 20 years.
“We identified the problem and immediately took the appropriate action,” Scott said.
________
Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
