CARTHERSVILLE WOMAN ADMITS TO EMBEZZLEMENT

A Pemiscot County, Mo., woman pled guilty to bank embezzlement charges in federal court.

Tracy D. Darnell, 29, of Caruthersville, Mo., appeared before U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber Monday. She pled guilty to three counts of felony embezzlement and theft.

Darnell admitted that while working as a cashier at Security Bank she embezzled more than $90,000 dollars. She worked at the bank at the time the money was embezzled, which was from December 1997 to March 1999.

Darnell was suspended by the bank March 23, 1999, when supervisors discovered she had been misapplying funds from various bank ATM accounts into several savings accounts under her control.

Since Darnell was the employee responsible for making the deposits match the ATM deposits, she was able to prevent a paper trail by blocking electronic transfer postings, said U.S. Attorney Audrey G. Fleissig.

Although more than 50 transactions occurred, Darnell was only charged with three specific ones.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Price said that restitution for the case is not limited to only the counts of conviction. Once the exact amount of the money lost is determined, United States Code make an order of full restitution mandatory.

Darnell faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and, or a fine up to $1 million. Sentencing was set for 2:30 p.m. Nov. 27 at the federal courthouse.