OKLAHOMA CITY – Misappropriation of nearly five dozen cash bonds over a three-year period in the Haskell County Sheriff’s Office was discovered during an investigative examination of the department’s ledgers, State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd informed District Attorney Chuck Sullivan.
Indications of embezzlement came to light after the resignation in August 2019 of Monica “Mona” Ellison, former administrative assistant and financial deputy in the sheriff’s department, the report on the forensic audit relates.
Ellison “misappropriated 56 cash bond transactions” that totaled more than $25,000, Byrd wrote in the audit report she submitted on May 4, 2022.
Following Ellison’s resignation, Byrd interviewed her “to discuss the concerns covered” in the report on the investigative audit. Ellison “was unable to provide an explanation for the undeposited funds” and retained an attorney from McAlester after the interview.
As a result of discussions among the state auditor’s office, the district attorney’s office, the state attorney general’s office, and the Haskell County Sheriff’s Office, “We expect criminal charges to be filed in the near future,” Sheriff Tim Turner told Southwest Ledger on July 6.
To strengthen their case, investigators are currently “taking the auditor’s work and identifying victims” whose bonds were allegedly misappropriated, the sheriff said.
The sheriff’s department is responsible for receiving and depositing cash bonds that are required to secure the release of a county jail inmate, Byrd noted. Upon collection of a cash bond, a receipt should be issued, and those funds should then be remitted daily to the county treasurer.
Ellison’s primary responsibility was managing collection of cash bonds and other miscellaneous fees, the audit report says.
After Ellison resigned, “an internal examination of records” revealed that multiple cash bonds were “unaccounted for from 2013 to 2019,” the state auditor wrote. Consequently, Sheriff Turner asked District Attorney Sullivan “to call for an investigative audit.” Sullivan, in turn, asked the SA&I’s Office to perform an audit of the HCSO’s Cash Bond Account.
During the “comprehensive analysis” performed on the sheriff’s department’s cash bond transactions, the state auditor’s staff learned that the department collected $112,705 in cash bonds over a 38-month period, between July 1, 2016, and Aug. 31, 2019. However, $87,436 in cash bonds was deposited, “resulting in a misappropriation of funds totaling $25,269,” Byrd reported.
Ellison was the employee “primarily responsible” for the collection and deposit of cash bonds received by the sheriff’s office. She was “responsible for all phases of the cash bond process, including collection, receipting, posting, depositing, and reconciling,” Byrd wrote. Ellison also was “responsible for removing and processing virtually all funds” from the Haskell County Sheriff’s Office safe.
A photocopy of a portion of the “HCSO Safe Log” shows that monies removed from the safe were signed out by Officer 515 – the officer number assigned to Ellison.
Two examples of apparent thefts are provided in the audit report.
In one instance, a receipt was issued on March 2, 2018, for a $5,000 cash bond payment, and the HCSO Safe Log shows the entire payment was removed from the jail safe on March 5, 2018, by Officer 515. A deposit ticket prepared and signed by Ellison on March 15 “indicated that only $2,000 of the $5,000 bond” was deposited into the Official Depository Account, Byrd reported. The $3,000 difference between what was receipted and what was deposited “is a $3,000 misappropriation of funds.”
Another receipt, issued by Ellison on Oct. 4, 2018, showed receipt of an $834 cash bond collected on behalf of a prisoner who was jailed for the Town of McCurtain. However, “no cash bond sheet could be located for this arrestee, the amount was not included on the HCSO Safe Log, and the amount could not be located as deposited on any Official Depository Ticket,” Byrd wrote. This incident “resulted in a misappropriation of $834.”
Segregation of duties
‘virtually nonexistent’
The audit also revealed that receipts were not issued for all cash bonds the sheriff’s office received. “Receipts should have been issued for all funds collected, regardless of the source, and should have been reconciled to deposits daily,” Byrd advised.
In another related matter, the Offender Data Information System indicated several individuals arrested in Haskell County were released when bail was posted for them or their fines were paid. However, Byrd pointed out, “the arrestees were actually released” after cash bonds were posted, “confirming that cash bonds collected were not properly recorded and accounted for in ODIS.”
Policies governing financial matters in the Haskell County Sheriff’s Office “had been in place” for approximately 20 years, “long before I got here,” said Turner, who is in his second term.
Also, funds that were received in the HCSO were not deposited daily “as required by statute.” Several factors “contributed to the loss of cash bond revenue,” Byrd wrote, “the Number One factor being the lack of a segregation of duties” between receipting, depositing and vouchering of cash bonds. This lack of segregation of duties was “virtually nonexistent, which led to an increased risk for misappropriation of funds,” Byrd wrote.
“It’s very hard for a rural department of our size to segregate duties” as recommended by the state auditor,” Turner said. Nevertheless, “Those duties have now been distributed among several people in our office, including the jail staff.”
The sheriff said that when he “went back through our records, I discovered we had a problem.” The cash bond account “should have zeroed out each month,” said Turner, 38, who previously worked for the district attorney’s office and received training in financial investigations of crimes such as drug cases.
“I was able to see some discrepancies very quickly” in his department’s ledgers, Turner said. “I kicked it to the D.A., and he contacted the state auditor to request an audit.”
“I’m very displeased when a member of the department’s ‘family’ lets us down,” he said. “It’s disheartening.”
The State Auditor’s office had 45 active investigative audits underway on March 30, agency spokesman Trey Davis told the Ledger. The Haskell County S.O. audit was one of nine that were completed and in final review at that time, prior to public release.
Records in the Oklahoma State Courts Network show that a “Monica Ellison” was a defendant in protective order cases filed in Haskell County in 2000 and in 2008. Both times, the documents were served at the “HCSO” – which stands for the Haskell County Sheriff’s Office, a footnote in the State Auditor’s report explains.
OSCN records show that in September 2009 Central National Bank sued “Monica Ellison” in Haskell County District Court and secured a garnishment of wages until a $3,423 debt was paid. The judgement was paid off in February 2010, court records reflect.
Court records also show a “Monica K. Ellison” was sued by Unifund CCR in Haskell County District Court on Jan. 19, 2021, for default on a loan totaling $1,840. The case was dismissed five months later at the request of Unifund; no explanation for the dismissal appears in the records.
Unifund CCR LLC is a company that buys “junk” debts. Unifund acquires old charged-off debt from credit card companies, hospitals, cellphone companies, and even other debt collectors.