A former clerk at Garland County District Court was arrested Tuesday afternoon following a lengthy investigation into allegations she stole more than $40,000 from court deposits in 2012.
Donna Linda Schleeter, 49, who lists an address of 400 Clark St., turned herself in around 4:30 p.m. on a felony charge of theft of property more than $5,000, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and was released a short time later on $7,500 bond, reduced from an initial bond of $15,000.
The case has been bound directly to Garland County Circuit Court since it involved a district court employee, and she is set for an arraignment hearing on March 3.
Brent Miller, Schleeter's attorney, said Wednesday that Schleeter had been aware of the investigation for almost two years and had continued working in Hot Springs and upon learning of the existence of a warrant for her arrest she immediately went to the Hot Springs Police Department with Miller to turn herself in.
"We plan to address the charges in due course and await what evidence the state has to prove these allegations," Miller said.
According to the affidavit, on Feb. 16, 2012, Vickie Asher, chief court clerk at district court, reported two cash deposits totaling $41,148.76, including $21,432.26 on Feb. 7 and $19,716.50 on Feb. 10, were stolen.
Asher stated she was notified on Feb. 15 by Summit Bank that one of two deposits just taken there was short by $1. The deposit that was incorrect was dated Feb. 6 for $19,394.19. The other deposit dated Feb. 14 for $30,270.50 was correct.
Asher checked the deposit slips and verified the shortage. She then checked the court's deposit ledger and discover the Feb. 6 deposit should have been made the previous week.
At that point, Asher, Cindy Wilson, senior deputy clerk, and Jason Lawrence, court administrator, conducted an audit and discovered the Feb. 7 and 10 deposits should have also been made, but weren't. They were filled out in the deposit book but had not been deposited at the bank.
They searched the offices and safe but could not locate the missing deposits, so they spoke with Schleeter, the clerk "responsible for putting the deposits together every morning and putting them in the safe to be deposited."
Schleeter reportedly could not tell them why the deposits were made out of order or what happened to the missing deposits.
A complete audit was conducted by the court and the city of Hot Springs Finance Department, which revealed that, starting in the middle of 2011, discrepancies began to appear in the sequences in which the deposits were made. On 37 separate occasions between June 2011 and Feb. 15, 2012, deposits were held back and made several days later than they should have been.
The time frame coincided with when Schleeter allegedly began to violate policy and procedures by putting the deposits together and then verifying they were made while the verification was actually supposed to be done by someone else.
The audit also reportedly confirmed that monies from Feb. 7 and 10 were taken in and deposit slips created by Schleeter, but they never made it to the bank. Schleeter was terminated on Feb. 22, 2012.
HSPD detective S. Lampinen subpoenaed Schleeter's checking and savings account statements from August 2011 up to then, and his investigation reportedly revealed Schleeter "spent a lot of time gambling at Oaklawn Jockey Club" so he also subpoenaed Oaklawn's records related to Schleeter.
He determined Schleeter's monthly income from her court job was $1,446.32, and she also received $600 a month from her husband, for a total of $2,046.32 per month of verifiable income. Her known bills were $600 a month, leaving her court salary as disposable income.
According to the records, from Aug. 1, 2011, to Feb. 15, 2012, she deposited an additional $5,842 in cash into her checking account and withdrew $13,640 in cash from her checking account using ATMs, mainly at Oaklawn.
From Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2011, she was reportedly at Oaklawn 168 times and wagered $39,934.12, with a net loss for the year of $2,985.86, an average of $237 in wagers and a net loss of $17.77 per trip.
From Jan. 1, 2012, to Feb. 16, 2012, she was reportedly at Oaklawn 24 times and wagered $49,084.05, with a net loss of $2,646.93, an average of $2,045.59 in wagers and a net loss of $110.29 per trip.
The affidavit states the suspect's income "does not match the amount of money she is depositing and withdrawing nor does it match the amounts of money she is gambling with and losing at Oaklawn."
Lampinen noted he investigated five other people who work at district court who could have had access to the safe and the deposits, and all five voluntarily provided their financial records and submitted to polygraph exams, and all five were excluded as possible suspects in the thefts.
Local on 02/13/2014