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Arrest made in alleged county theft
A year-long investigation into alleged missing money from the Bourbon County Clerk's Office came to a conclusion Thursday when a former clerk's office employee was arrested.
Officers from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Bourbon County Sheriff's office arrested Angela Timi, 28, of Fort Scott, at a location in Fort Scott. She was taken into custody at about 11:31 a.m. and booked into the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Facility on charges of alleged criminal use of a financial card, forgery, making false information, misuse of public funds and theft by deception.
She is being held with no bond.
No court date was set as of Thursday afternoon.
No value of the alleged theft has been announced and a complaint had not been filed with the District Court Clerk's office as of Thursday afternoon. Bourbon County Attorney Terri Johnson said a press release will be available today.
Timi was employed with Bourbon County from August 2011 until she was terminated in January 2013.
During a special meeting on Jan. 3, 2013, Bourbon County Commissioners announced the county was pursuing a criminal investigation against a former non-elected employee of the Bourbon County Clerk's office. The employee at the time was terminated for misconduct, and an investigation began for alleged employee theft.
At that January 2013 commission meeting were commissioners Harold Coleman, Allen Warren and Jingles Endicott, County Attorney Terri Johnson, Assistant County Attorney Valorie Leblanc and then sheriff Ron Gray, along with Bourbon County Clerk Kendell Mason.
The investigation was led by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Commissioners were given occasional reports on the status of the investigation throughout 2013. The last public update was provided on Dec. 20 when Johnson said KBI investigators were still working. She also said she understood the public doesn't understand why the investigation had not been completed.
"In general, those agents are assigned to cases, but for example, if you have a person crime, sometimes a non-person crime goes down the list because they've got to work the person crime," Johnson said at that meeting.
Commission Chairman Allen Warren said he was glad to get an update, as people in the community were wondering about the status of the case.
On Thursday, when contacted about the arrest, Warren said he could not comment.