APACHE –— A former Town Hall employee is named in two misdemeanor criminal charges accusing her of embezzling almost $400 of municipal funds.
Kelly Lynn Lunsford of Apache, who turned 45 a month ago, is accused of stealing town funds on two occasions in July. She was fired from her job, and the town’s financial records are being audited by Furrh and Associates of Lawton, Mayor Dakota Woods told Southwest Ledger.
Lunsford is free from custody on a $2,500 own-recognizance bond and is scheduled to return to Caddo County District Court on Dec. 21.
She is alleged to have pocketed $280 that a town resident paid July 25 on his utility bill, and $108 that another customer paid on July 21 for the impoundment of her dog and a one-day boarding fee, Apache Police Officer Ben Lehew related in a probable-cause affidavit.
Town Clerk Gena Montgomery reported that records of those transactions were not found on the town’s computer system. Lehew reported that he examined the town’s ledgers and found “no evidence to indicate that these funds” were deposited into the town’s General Fund account “or any other account” at the Shamrock Bank branch in Apache.
Apache Police Chief Brynn Barnett contacted the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation on Aug. 1 and asked them to join the investigation.
An OSBI agent conducted “formal oral interviews” Aug. 3 of Montgomery, Lunsford, and Connie Frazier, a newly hired part-time town employee who accepted the money tendered in both transactions.
Montgomery and Frazier completed their interviews. However, after approximately one hour the interview with Lunsford “was abruptly halted” when she invoked her Miranda rights, Lehew wrote.
Frazier subsequently underwent a polygraph examination by an OSBI “trained examiner” on Aug. 16 and “was cleared of any further inquiry into her part in this matter.”