APACHE – Criminal charges that had been pending for 20 months against a former Town Hall employee accused of embezzling almost $400 of municipal funds were dismissed last month.
Kelly Lynn Lunsford, 46, of Apache, was accused of stealing town funds on two occasions in July 2023. She was fired from her job, and the town’s financial records were audited by Furrh and Associates of Lawton, Mayor Dakota Woods told Southwest Ledger.
Lunsford was alleged to have pocketed $280 that a town resident paid in cash July 25, 2023, on his utility bill, and $108 cash that another customer paid on July 21, 2023, 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 and asked them to join the investigation.
An OSBI agent conducted “formal oral interviews” of Montgomery, Lunsford, and a newly hired part-time town employee who accepted the money tendered in both transactions.
Montgomery and the new employee completed their interviews. However, after approximately one hour the interview with Lunsford “was abruptly halted” when she invoked her Miranda rights, Lehew wrote.
The new employee subsequently underwent a polygraph examination by an OSBI “trained examiner’ … and “was cleared of any further inquiry into her part in this matter.”
Two misdemeanor embezzlement charges were filed against Lunsford on Sept. 6, 2023, but were dismissed on Feb. 16, 2024.
Instead, two felony embezzlement charges were filed against Lunsford on Jan. 30, 2024, but they too were dismissed, on April 25, 2025.
Lunsford was represented by Chickasha attorney Anna K. Van Dyck.
“The parties have reached an agreement and hereby jointly move that this matter be dismissed with costs and with prejudice,” meaning the case was terminated permanently and prosecutors are barred from bringing the same allegations against Lunsford again.
Upon payment in full of the court costs, Lunsford “shall be allowed to immediately expunge” both the felony and the misdemeanor cases from court records. “This agreement is not intended to reflect on the merits of this case by either party, and shall not be used as such.” And neither the prosecution nor the defense “shall use this agreement as evidence of the merits of this case in any future case arising out of the underlying facts at issue…”