EVERETT — A jury acquitted a former Snohomish County clerk of stealing money from a county lock box but couldn’t reach a verdict on three felony charges.
Deliberations began late Thursday afternoon in the case against Sara Nelson. The Marysville woman, 39, is accused of embezzling money in 2013 from the juvenile court’s diversion program.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter charged Nelson with three counts of misappropriation or falsification of accounts by a public officer and one count of third-degree theft.
Jurors deliberated most of Friday before acquitting Nelson of the misdemeanor theft charge. The jury was hung on the felony misappropriation charges.
A new trial date is scheduled for Sept. 16.
“At this point, the state’s intention is to go forward with the case,” Hunter said.
Nelson’s defense attorney argued during last week’s trial that the investigators failed to prove that Nelson was behind the missing money. He claimed that Nelson was targeted simply because her initials were on receipts, but evidence showed that other clerks used Nelson’s computer while she was logged on.
Hunter alleged that Nelson breached the public’s trust. He told jurors that she was in financial trouble in 2013. The deputy prosecutor said that Nelson figured out a way to game the clerk’s computerized record-keeping system and pocketed money that belonged to the county.
Part of Nelson’s job in the clerk’s office was to take cash payments from juveniles in the diversion program. Kids paid $100 to take classes as part of the requirements to avoid criminal charges.
An investigation showed that money had been collected and turned over to the court clerks for recording and processing. The clerks sent the probation office printed sheets verifying that they’d processed the payments.
Nelson is accused of logging off the system before the payments were recorded in the clerk’s database. That meant no record was created about what happened to the money, jurors were told.
Court papers said investigators uncovered more than three dozen falsified records, totalling more than $3,000.
A discrepancy was first reported in September 2013 when a probation counselor tried to verify that a juvenile had paid his fee. The boy’s last name was misspelled on paperwork so a clerk supervisor used a receipt number to track down the payment. The receipt number corresponded to a $1 photocopy fee, not the juvenile’s payment.
A supervisor began to investigate, even inquiring of Nelson how it was possible to generate a verification sheet without the payment being permanently posted to the computer accounting system. Nelson allegedly showed the woman how to post the payment, print a verification sheet and back out of the transaction before hitting the “enter” key.
“Accordingly, no one was the wiser if a cash deposit transaction was not finalized,” Hunter wrote in court papers.
Jurors were told about three payments that were never posted in the system. Nelson allegedly generated the verification sheets for those three transactions, Hunter alleged.
The jury couldn’t decide if Nelson was behind the bogus receipts.
Jurors weren’t persuaded that Nelson was responsible for money missing from the lock box. They were told that an employee deposited $100 in the box after business hours Nov. 12, 2013. It was no longer in the box when a supervisor checked two days later.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
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