Former Miner city clerk faces theft charge

MINER, Mo. -- A former Miner city clerk is facing a felony theft charge as the result of the latest state audit.

"We found embezzlement," State Auditor Tom Schweich said Tuesday. "We identified missing monies. It looks to us like the city clerks have not deposited about $14,398 recorded by the court as having been received.

Those funds were transmitted to the city for deposit in the city bank account but were never deposited. We also found records have been altered in order to hide the theft of the money -- both of which are crimes."

Stephanie Turner of Portageville, Missouri, was charged with felony theft/stealing by Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Boyd on Dec. 22.

Turner reportedly turned herself in at the Pemiscot County Sheriff's Department on Dec. 29 and later that same day was released after posting a $10,000 cash or surety bond.

Turner, who was previously employed by the city as an administrative assistant for a number of years, first served as interim city clerk following the resignation of Danielle Patrick from the position in May.

Appointed by the Miner Board of Aldermen on June 24 to fill the unexpired portion of Patrick's term, Turner was first suspended with pay from the position Sept. 19 and then terminated by the city Oct. 3.

Schweich said his office selects a number of municipal courts to conduct a financial and performance audit on each year.

Having only gone back a couple of years for this audit, "I don't know if we found everything," he said. "We expect that the prosecutor will do even more investigation."

Other findings from the audit not related to the missing money and altered records include issues with the city's bonding procedure and a failure by the court to report what percentage of the city's revenue comes from traffic tickets, a requirement of state statutes.

The theft and alteration of public records may have been avoided, Schweich said, if appropriate procedures were in place.

"Nobody was supervising the city clerk to make sure she was making deposits," Schweich said. "You never give just one person control of the cash."

The complete audit report as well as all of the other state audit reports are available to the public at auditor.mo.gov.