State Auditor Shad White issued the following statement.
Today State Auditor Shad White announced Stephanie Churchill has pleaded guilty to embezzlement in Benton County Circuit Court. Churchill, a former Town Clerk of Hickory Flat, was indicted and arrested for embezzlement in April of 2022. The guilty plea was recorded in Judge J. Kelley Luther’s courtroom.
Churchill embezzled Hickory Flat Water and Sewage Department funds by not depositing the funds collected from water and sewage bills from October 2018 through February 2021. Special Agents presented a $104,256.92 demand letter to Churchill upon her arrest. The Auditor’s office has already recovered $50,000 from a surety bond company and returned it back to Hickory Flat taxpayers. Churchill was ordered to pay $55,850.42 in restitution and other court fees.
“We will continue to work with prosecutors, who make decisions about when to charge someone with a crime, to achieve results for the taxpayers,” said State Auditor Shad White. “My office has investigated more than 100 people whom prosecutors have chosen to indict in my time in office, and we will continue to build a track record of being tough on perpetrators.”
Churchill is now convicted of a felony offense and will never be able to handle public money again. Judge Luther’s sentencing order has been filed with the Benton Circuit Clerk’s Office for public inspection.
Suspected fraud can be reported to the Auditor’s office online at any time by clicking the red button at www.osa.ms.gov or calling 1-(800)-321-1275 during normal business hours.
29 comments:
She left Hickory Flat flat broke yet they still managed to have a working water system. Maybe Ted Henifin needs to interview this lady. I suggest she charge him $56,000 for her advice and expertise.
In a town that small that's a lot of money. How did she think she could get away with it? She had to be desperate not just greedy.
more low hanging fruit picked, while the real corruption in Mississippi goes unchecked.
A better question, 3:27, is how the hell the city accountant or bookkeeper or city manager or mayor didn't see the deposits they expected to come in every month to float expenses?
What we have here is a total lack of segregation of duties AND elected official who are asleep at the wheel.
"She had to be desperate not just greedy."
Neither. She knew there were bumbling bubbas in the wheel-house who would never notice an empty bank account.
Another arrest in the boonies yet somehow he can’t find any corruption in Jackson? Or Phil? Good job Shad
Shad must have assigned his three blind mice to investigate Phiil
Lowly employees go to jail. Elected officials walk.
Meth face.
4:00 and 4:07 - You have any specific accusations? Or do you want Shad and the auditors office to just start knocking on everyone's door or start requesting every document and contract for the whole city? Stop bitching if you don't have anything other than a general complaint like this. Put up or shut up. I hear the auditors office has a complaint line - why don't you log off and call it if you know something.
Compared to Alex Murdoch she is a beginner. I understand he is teaching a master class in prison both in law and stealing. Not so much double murder.
Well, apparently the generations of more experienced corrupt government employees and elected officials were not very good teachers.
@ @ 4:41 sounds like someone struck a nerve, the whole state knows phill needs to be prosecuted, Now what?
With that kind of money she didn’t do her face and hair. Wow.
@5:31
I guess you'll have to ask Jody, Lynn, and the Biden DOJ. They're the prosecutors--not Shad.
The votes are in. Mr. Shad will have to come on here and get permission to take any action in the future.
4:03 She was the only one in the office, she had a $50,000 bond so that’s all they can recover plus expenses.
What's the sentence?
Figured he had some announcement in the chute since he’s obviously on the outside looking in on the TANF case.
It's 4:41, only about 20 minutes before time to knock off for the day. Shad and the guys spend that last 30 minutes policing JJ for any untoward smartassery in re the goings-on down to the auditor's office.
"Bumbling bubbas in the wheelhouse" lol
That's the Mississippi Legislature in a nutshell.
@4:41 -- I'm not 4:00 or 4:07, but if'n i was a bet'n man, I'd say Phil is practicing tenor right now.
That sugar tit was sweet while it lasted-
Shad is like the Brandon Amphitheatre.
Folks will complain no matter who he books.
Shad will keep being doubted until Phil is indicted. Problem then is, the Feds will be the ones indicting Phil and the first question to be asked is why didn’t Shad move on Phil earlier? Shad can keep whining that he doesn’t prosecute, but he can’t escape his own comments about Phil being the whistleblower and the fact that he (Shad) acted completely unaware of the texts Anna Wolfe provided that appear to absolutely incriminate Phil. This entire “I’m just the fact finder, not the prosecutor” line is BS that Shad’s public relations/campaign team has crafted because they know what’s coming. What say you, Shadrack?
You really think a Democrat DA of Hinds County and the Biden DOJ would hold back on taking action against Phil when "the [cherry-picked] texts Anna Wolfe provided" have been publicly available for over a year?
Even if Shad was covering for Phil, the prosecutors should face heat for not acting on what is OBVIOUSLY available.
I don’t know what she did with the money, but it is obvious she didn’t spend it on make up or at the beautician shop.
12:11 - Pay attention. Notice the t-shirt? She spent it on vacations .
All you Phil haters out there are going to be eating some serious crow when the truth comes out. Some may have some serious "splaining to do" down the road. Truth is spinning toward the surface and the results may actually be explosive to the point of revocation of a "Golden" calf. Sometimes the present is not so glorious but that one may wish to dwell in the past.
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