Kermi Tina Ledford
A Murray County, Ga., clerk who embezzled over $100,000 in government funds will spend a year in prison and replay the money.
Kermi Tina Ledford, 50, of 876 Prince Beam Road, Chatsworth, entered a guilty plea to felony theft of government funds by a government employee and was sentenced by Senior Superior Court Judge Jack Partain.
Her term in prison will be followed by nine years on probation.
In addition to other conditions, Ms.
Ledford will be required to pay restitution to Murray County in the amount of $100,000 by voluntarily forfeiting her retirement benefits during the term of her sentence.
She was represented by Dalton attorney Marcus Morris. Her case was scheduled to go to trial on April 29.
District Attorney Bert Poston said, "Ms. Ledford began working as a clerk in the Murray County Probate Court under former Judge Dale Adams in 1993 and became the chief clerk in 2001. In that capacity, she eventually took on responsibility for all financial aspects of the court, including collecting moneys received by the other clerks, accepting cash bonds delivered from the jail, making deposits and disbursing funds as required by law and reconciling bank statements. At some point, prior to 2010, Ledford began taking cash payments made to the court and converting the funds to her own use. During the time-period alleged in the indictment, there was a discrepancy of just over one hundred thousand dollars between funds received and total deposits into the Court’s bank account. Due to significant data manipulation in the court’s computer system, the exact amount of the theft cannot be determined but Ledford, the District Attorney, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations agreed it was at least $100,000.
"The theft was discovered by CJT Software of Canton, Ga., which provides court management software to a large number of probate courts in Georgia, including the Murray County Probate Court. CJT was working to move Murray County to a newer web-based version of the software and was verifying data to make sure that errors weren’t imported into the new version. In late 2015 and early 2016 they noticed a series of discrepancies which they could not reproduce in-house. Not sure if the errors were software related, user or training errors, or some intentional manipulation, they installed a 'trigger' or hidden subroutine that would save any deleted data along with the date and time of the deletion and the username of the person making the deletion. The subroutine quickly revealed that Ms. Ledford was intentionally manipulating the data in a way that raised suspicions of theft."
CJT President John Gilbert contacted District Attorney Poston in early 2016 and shortly thereafter, he requested that the GBI investigate. Special Agent Adam Jones was assigned to the investigation with the assistance of Jimmy Rawls, a forensic auditor with GBI headquarters in Decatur. District Attorney Investigator Kevin Caylor worked directly with Agent Jones on the case but no other local law enforcement was notified or asked to assist at that time.
DA Poston said, "After several months of pulling computer and bank records, both from the Probate Court and from Ms. Ledford’s personal accounts, sufficient evidence was developed to establish a pattern of theft. Search warrants were executed on the Probate Court and simultaneously on Ms. Ledford’s home and automobile in early February of 2017, shortly after current Probate Court Judge John Waters had taken office. Forensic evidence developed in the case excluded the possibility that either Judge Adams or Judge Waters or any other employee of the court was involved in the theft operation. All evidence pointed to Ms. Ledford and to her alone.
"Ms. Ledford was interviewed by investigators Jones and Caylor on the day of the search warrant although she was not arrested until several days later. She admitted to one incident where she took $100 in court funds to pay a power bill but denied any large scale theft. The searches revealed files in Ms. Ledford’s work area with tickets and cash bonds where some of the cash from those bonds was missing even though the cases had not yet gone to court. More cash was located in her residence along with money wrappers of the same type used by the court to make cash deposits. Cash was also found in her vehicle and numerous cash receipts were located both at her home and in her vehicle.
"Bank records established that approximately $45,000 in cash was deposited into her personal checking account and/or used to make cash payments on her home mortgage and on a vehicle loan between 2013 and early 2017. Facebook records also established a pattern of travel and entertainment that was beyond what could be explained by Ms. Ledford’s legitimate income. During 2016, Ms. Ledford was out-of-town almost every other weekend.
"A combination of computer and other court records showed that during the early stages of her operation, she would edit receipts that had already been entered in the system, either by herself or by other clerks, and delete the disbursements for those receipts showing where the money was to be paid out. All funds paid to Probate Court get disbursed either to Murray County or to various other government funds and programs as required by law. When receipts are posted, the software calculates those disbursements. By deleting the disbursement data on certain receipts, Ms. Ledford was able to deposit less than all of the funds received and still cover the disbursements that remain untouched. She could also print disbursement reports which would match the amounts of the checks she wrote each month. Towards the end, Ms. Ledford had become more sophisticated and would actually reduce the amount of the receipt after deleting the disbursements, and would then recalculate the disbursements based on the reduced receipt amount. That way she could keep receipts and disbursements balanced on the books. The only way to catch the discrepancy, without the software trigger installed by CJT, would have been to compare the original printed receipt to what was showing in the computer.
"After Ms. Ledford’s suspension and termination from county employment, the cash deposits into her bank account ceased altogether. Probate Court receipts and deposits also increased significantly after her departure. The average monthly deposit into the Murray County Probate Court bank account during the six months after Ms. Ledford’s arrest was $4,612.72 greater than during the six-months prior to her arrest, an increase of over 16 percent.
"The District Attorney’s Office would like to commend the GBI for their work in this case. Special Agent Jones put a tremendous amount of time into the case, particularly during the past month tracking down individuals who had made payments to the court when those payments had later been deleted by Ms. Ledford. Jones’ efforts in the case appear to have overwhelmed the defense to the point that Ms. Ledford abandoned her desire for a jury trial and agreed to enter a guilty plea. It was important to us that she enter a guilty plea in order to hopefully bring some healing to the community. She had been protesting her innocence for the past two years and many among her friends and family no doubt believed she was being falsely accused. The guilty plea should end that. It was also important that Ms. Ledford pay back the stolen funds. While she has little to show for her theft, she had one significant asset – her accumulated retirement benefits having worked for the county for over 25 years. As part of the plea, Ms. Ledford agreed to forfeit those benefits during the term of her probation in order to reimburse the people of Murray County."
Ms. Ledford had no prior criminal history. She is required by her sentence to report to the Murray County Jail on Monday to begin serving her time.