Posted on 03/04/2010 3:48:36 PM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
MADISONVILLE - A bookkeeper with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department is facing prosecution after a state review found at least $30,000 missing from the jail commissary in October, according to an audit released this week.
Monroe County Sheriff Bill Bivens said Thursday in a statement that Julia Robison was arrested Jan. 15 after being indicted for theft over $10,000 by a Monroe County grand jury.
The cash shortage was discovered during an unrelated internal affairs probe into Robison's activities.
Robison had been placed on administrative leave on Oct. 22, 2008, for allegedly sharing confidential information to a felony probationer that "endangered an ongoing drug investigation and the lives of officers," Bivens said.
Bivens said he later fired Robison after an internal affairs investigation by Detective Pat Henry determined she had released the confidential information.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Yup, our criminal justice system might not be broke, but is certainly badly bent. She's being investigated for problems involving more than $60,000 for which she was responsible, and in an unrelated case she was fired for sharing confidential information regarding a drug investigation with one of those being investigated.
What on Earth has happened to our criminal justice system that a person can be released on $5,000 bond in a case like this?
I'm sure there's more to the case than is being reported here, but this account certainly leaves one wondering if there's any sanity left in the world.
Multiply this by 300 and you’d get an idea of what’s going on in the south. I would be guessing that a quarter of all sheriff office’s run in this fashion.
In my home town in Bama (to be left unnamed), they had a clerk for the city water department. For six years...she kept the books. One day...someone noted a discrepancy of about $800 over one quarter. Eventually, they got into outside audit and figured over one year that they’d lost around $3k via this clerk. Enough records were gone...so they couldn’t go past the one-year point...but you have to figure she took at least that much every year. The town is five hundred in population. Something like this gets on everyone’s nerves. The clerk paid back the money, and then was terminated. No jail time.
I think this is going on most everywhere.
1. Never let the person who handles the money have access to the books.
2. Have at least two people involved in every transaction.
3. Never allow relatives to work in the financial office.
4. Get an independent audit every year by a Certified Public Accountant (and don't use Madoff's CPA).
Anyone in charge of a division or firm (i.e., its president, and if a corporation its directors) who fails to follow these simple, basic measures is grossly negligent. If hired, he should be fired. If the owner, he deserves what he gets.
She won't have far to go if convicted.
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