Eastern Wake News
Former Knightdale PTA president released while appeal decision is made
Former Forestville Road Elementary PTA president Juli Ann Williams was released from jail last week after the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay of her six-month sentence.
She spent a little less than a month in prison.
Williams was found guilty of embezzlement in January and according to prison records, was meant to serve six months as a split sentence.
Split sentences can mean an inmate serves their sentence a weekend at a time, months at a time or in other increments.
It’s not clear how Williams was serving her time. She is also required to serve four years of probation.
The Court of Appeals issued their stay Feb. 17 and Williams was released from the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women in Raleigh.
Williams filed an appeal the same day when she was found guilty of embezzling $4,129 in PTA funds she reported stolen from her car in September 2012.
The temporary stay does not mean the Court of Appeals has overturned the jury's initial decision. Instead, it means Williams' sentence is on hold until the court rules on the appeal. It’s unclear when the Court of Appeals will rule on Williams’ appeal.
The most recent embezzlement charge was not the first brought against Williams in Knightdale.
In October 2012, Knightdale police charged Williams with embezzling $1,500 from the school after auditing the PTA’s financial records and discovering the money had gone missing on July 20.
Altogether, police say, Williams took $5,629 from the PTA.
According to state prison inmate records, this jail time was not Williams' first.
In 2003, Williams spent about four months in jail in Lenoir County for forgery.
In 2001, Williams was sentenced to probation, also on forgery charges in Lenoir County.
In 1995 in Lenoir County, Williams also received probation on five counts of writing worthless checks. Two of the checks were for amounts over $100.
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