Former Innovate Mississippi CFO Tanya Klauser went home less than a year after she was convicted of embezzling nearly $600,000 from her employer.
Madison County Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff sentenced Tonya Klauser to serve ten years in prison on August 30, 2017 after she pleaded guilty in June 2017 to two counts of false pretenses. She admitted stealing $598,143 from her former employer from 2010 to 2013. However, Judge Ratcliff suspended six years of the sentence. The Mississippi Parole Board released her from prison after she served 25% of the sentence as a non-violent offender.
Klauser pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of embezzlement in 2014 after her embezzlement at Innovate Mississippi was discovered. U.S. District Judge Tom Lee sentenced her a year later to serve all of thirty days in prison, two months in a halfway house, and then six months under house arrest.
The indictment tells the story:
TONYA KLAUSER, herein "KLAUSER," from on or about and between August 3, 2010, up to and including August 30, 2013, both dates being approximate and inclusive, in Madison County, Mississippi, she being then and there the agent, servant and employee of the aforesaid Innovate Mississippi, had in her possession and under her control a certain American Express credit card numbered originally xxxx-xxxxx4-2001; which said number was changed in June of 2011 to xxxx-xxxxxx-22009, which said credit card was issued to "Tonya Klauser-Mississippi Technology Alliance," with the understanding between KLAUSER and Mississippi Technology Alliance that said card was to be used to make personal purchases by KLAUSER with American Express to be paid for said purchases by KLAUSER with her personal funds. Notwithstanding said agreement or understanding, KLAUSER made personal purchases with said card in an amount of more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), and instead of paying American Express for said charges with her personal funds, she caused said amount to be paid by Innovate Mississippi through direct checks and automated clearing house payments by means of a certain false pretense or representation, to-wit: by representing to Innovate Mississippi that the aforesaid charges were made for and on behalf of Innovate Mississippi. Said representation was known by KLAUSER to be false when made, was made with the intent that Innovate Mississippi rely upon said false representation and Innovate Mississippi did rely upon such false pretense in paying the aforesaid amounts, and KLAUSER thereby obtained payment for her purchases by such false and fraudulent pretense, with her intent then and there to cheat and defraud Innovate Mississippi, in violation of Miss. Code Ann.§97-19- 39 (1972, as amended);
Earlier posts
Klauser to serve four years.
Klauser pleads guilty.
Former CFO indicted for embezzlement.
Innovate Mississippi refiles lawsuit against accountants.
Former CFO pleads guilty to embezzlement.
Innovate Mississippi CFO accused of embezzling $1 million.
33 comments:
the irony of all ironies is that money is all smoke and mirrors. the feds print it and burn it 24/7
Tip of the iceberg in Mississippi.....auditing and finding out about the corruption is one thing, making sure they do time is the other.
Great attorney(s), lenient judge(s) or a combination of the two?
Is her husband still employed at MDA? Hard to believe he could be that oblivious to well over $600k appearing in their bank account, even broken out over several years.
Keep you mouth shut and serve a few months and all will be well.
These stories just won't end.
Steal 600k and get a parking ticket.
How is this any different than the CMU CREDIT CARD ABUSE reported by Kingfish in 2017?
White collar crime does indeed pay in MS.
Steal food to feed your kids and you will serve serious time. Steal millions from the taxpayers and you get probation or less than a year in jail. The Walkers have paid nearly zero in restitution for their crimes.
She is worth more than Bernie Evers just from her fraud. Bernie got life.
@5:45pm. POLITICS. It’s that simple. DA and State Auditor is scared of the BLACKMONS.
@5:45pm. Call Shad “snaggletooth” White, our green horn State Auditor. Don’t expect much from snaggletooth.
How does a married couple like that both land such high level exec positions in state government? I'm in the wrong business
One of the biggest cover ups in state government history. Innovate board tried to sweep this under the rug and move on. It took almost 8 years for this thing to get to court.....against the wishes of the governor, the Innovate board and many well heeled political donors.
5:18...once you reach that level of privilege you just assume it is God ordained to travel the world as a job perk. He probably never considered one time that his government employed wife was living like Princess Di. He probably enjoyed it.
It's pretty crazy to think we "lock and load" for idiots that dare try to go for loose change in our car, that people go to prison for much longer for stealing much much less.
White Collar crime pays.
FREE BERNIE!!!!
Free Bennie Evers. If she did less than a year. Bennie is past due to e freed.
Serious to the free Bernie.
Even though 'YOU' didn't do 'IT', "YOU" were the top of the totem pole in your company, therefor you gotta serve the time.
Wrong, too long here... free the man.
Really sick, system so called Justice. What a joke. That is someone's money she stole, put her thieving hand on.
Other places you loose both hands. Wussy system. Crime does pay!
What's the latest on the restitution?
The taxpayer money has been paid back?
Right?
@9:38pm. You are so right. Crime does pay, just come up to Canton and see how City Officials and CMU Officials are stealing hand over fist. Kingfish has reported on it, WLBT has reported on it, WAPThas reported on it, WJTV has reported on it, and many other news outlets. BUT in spite of all the publicity nothing is done because of chicken st%t elected officials scared to do their jobs. Mary for Auditor, Mary for DA, Mary for AG!!!! Why you ask, because she has bigger balls than any of the school girls we currently have serving in those positions.
I am beyond nauseous. I’m beginning to question everything about the court system - and I’m a Libra.
Why do you continue to beat up on Canton all of the Internal and External Audits of CMU have found no malfeasance. Personal purchases on CMU branded American Express cards were paid for by the individual who made those purchases in each and every case. The only charges from these cards expensed to CMU were authoried business expenses. If you don't understand how this works it's probably because you never had a company credit card.
Pickering was a coward, and part of the corrupt inner circle. He danced out the door into a fatter salary and less profile position. That's how you do it. They're all afraid of being exposed at any minute.
The moral of this story is that if you need some money, steal it from someone. Whatever you do, do not sell drugs to a dopehead idiot. Steal $600. Serve a little while in prison, never have to pay it or any of it back, your boss gets to keep his job, have some lesbian sex in prison, and everything is fine. Nobody ever mentions that her useless and talentless overpaid boss got to keep his job. In private industry, when someone steals that much money and the boss isn't an owner, the boss usually gets fired, too.
@7;14 - EVERY convict in the state of MS, with the exception ONLY of sex offenders, is entitled to the exact same sentence reduction as was granted to this woman. You can actually KILL somebody and get out of prison in only 5 or 6 years...but have sex on your 21st birthday with your 17 years, 11 months and 29 days old girlfriend (with whom you've been having sex for the past 2 years or so) and you'll serve every day of your 15 year sentence and THEN have to register as a sex offender (meaning you will NEVER be out of prison) for the rest of your life. Crazy, huh?
For the people wondering how a husband would not know the ole checking account had 600k in it.....obviously the woman was smart enough to not put it in that account. Reckon?
@10:06, the $600k (it was more than that) was spent, not saved. Even if she routed it through an account the husband didn't know about, that's over $600k of expenditures he should've seen. Her husband, the Chief Economic Development Officer of MDA, was either aware or oblivious. Neither is a good answer. Speaking of "aware or oblivious," Klauser was the only one who lost her job at Innovate Mississippi as a result of this.
@9:03, sorry to hear you (or your kid) can't refrain from statutory rape. Hope it was worth it.
@6:02
White collar crime does indeed pay in MS. Steal food to feed your kids and you will serve serious time. Steal millions from the taxpayers and you get probation or less than a year in jail. The Walkers have paid nearly zero in restitution for their crimes." Well said. In Mississippi, with so many judges and lawyers from the Oxford plantation (wink, nod) that there's no guarantee anyone will ever be held accountable.....and rivers of dirty money (meaning taxpayer's money) flow free.
11:35 Consider this. She had a 6-figure salary, so it wasn't as if she was expected to be destitute. Also, assuming she had somewhere to get money, my wife could spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothing and makeup and I wouldn't have any idea that it was expensive. I suspect a lot of that went on here. People of means, ill-gotten or legal often waste embarrassing amounts of money for things that to the regular Joe just look like clothes. It's almost sad, but funny, to think about a bunch of self-important people who waste that kind of money just so other self-important people will "know" what kind of clothes they are wearing. Meanwhile the rest of us are oblivious.
I'll also add that sometimes people who have ill gotten means are actually very generous with that money. Easy come/easy go and if you are on the receiving end, you have no idea where the money came from.
What a sweet thing to say hubby wubby
It's like this whole damn state is run by the mafia. In this case it's the political crime families that keep this place a sh t hole. Even the feds can't clean this mess up.
8:09, name one political crime family and its crime.
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