Thousands of inmate dollars embezzled in Valencia County
March 11, 2011
we've learned learned police are investigating a major emzzlement case at the valencia county detention center. as we first told you yesterday, almost a hundred thousand dollars disappeared from a cash account for inmates. kayla anderson went to valencia county to get some answers. kayla? the detention center won't name the employee-- because the sheriff's office is still investigating-- and the person hasn't been charged. in my exclusive intervew with the warden-- i learned the employee had been with the detention center since 2008-- and has since been fired. warden joe chavez is very disappointed in a former employee. "as the warden, you trust your employees to take care of you and vice versa. your employees trust that the warden will take care of them. just one person that saw something different and the greed took over." investigators will now dig deep into the records for the jail inmate cash account. it's made up of money inmates are booked with... and money that's deposited for them at an atm machine in the jail lobby. they use it for things like phone calls. but chavez discovered late last year the account was 98- thousand dollars overdrawn. and all fingers pointed to the one person responsible for managing the funds. "we at first put the person on administrative leave, pending an internal investigation and then at which time. due to other discrepencies in the job performance, went to the hr accounting policies for termination and that person was terminated." the detention center is now trying to fill the 98-thousand dollar hole... cutting corners so inmates aren't impacted... and using funds out of other areas in the budget to cover the debt. "we are dealing with this internally, within my budget, as far as different line items, moving that money out." thwarden says it's still unknown if the employee acted alone... that's something authorities are investigating. meanwhile, the warden has made changes to how the account is managed.
