Former Spring Lake finance director charged with embezzlement, bank fraud, identity theft
Federal authorities charged the Town of Spring Lake’s former finance director Friday with embezzlement, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft after a state audit found she had misspent more than $430,000.
Gay Cameron Tucker, 63, of Fayetteville embezzled more than $500,000 from the town while serving as finance director and accounting technician for the town, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in a news release. An indictment alleges that she wrote fraudulent checks containing forged signatures of the mayor and town manager.
“City government officials are entrusted to spend taxpayer funds on public needs – not their own,” U.S. Attorney Michael Easley said in the release. “Our prosecutors and law enforcement partners are committed to vigorously investigating all allegations of public corruption.”
The charges include one count of embezzlement from a local government receiving federal funds, four counts of bank fraud, and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
Tucker could not be reached for comment.
The indictment said Tucker wrote roughly $565,000 in forged checks with fraudulent signatures. Roughly $177,000 of that money went to “Heritage Place,” “Heritage House” or “Heritage,” the indictment said. The state audit released in March said town money went to Heritage Place Senior Living, where Tucker’s husband was being cared for.
Another $148,000 in checks were made out to Tucker, and the remaining $240,000 were made out to Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union and deposited in an account Tucker had there, the indictment said.
The FBI is investigating the case and Assistant U.S. Attorney William M. Gilmore is prosecuting. Tucker appeared before U.S. Magistrate Robert T. Numbers, who appointed a public defender for her and released her without bail, federal court records show.
The News & Observer reported this spring that Spring Lake hired her in 2020 without conducting interviews or looking at a resume, though her background included multiple bankruptcies, tax liens, unpaid credit card bills and failed businesses.
The misspending and poor oversight in Spring Lake, a town of 12,000 bordering Fort Bragg, has prompted several proposed reforms that state lawmakers may take up this session. The state Local Government Commission took over the town’s purse strings last year.
State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who leads the commission and has been vocal about Spring Lake’s financial problems, said the indictment was “sad relief.”
“Sad that this has happened to the taxpayers of Spring Lake, and relief that finally law enforcement is taking these matters seriously,” he said.
The misspending might have been caught sooner had Spring Lake turned in annual audits on time as state law requires, Folwell said.
One of the reforms Folwell hopes lawmakers will adopt would add teeth to that law. It would require the state Revenue Department to withhold sales tax revenues up to 150% of the equivalent of an audit’s cost to persuade local governments to get audits completed and filed on time.
The money would be returned when the audit is done and accepted by the LGC. The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and the North Carolina League of Municipalities say that reform may be overly punitive for their members.
“We don’t ask for any legislation we don’t need and we sincerely hope when we ask for it we never have to use it, and this would be the case here,” Folwell said. “We hope that we would never have to do a sales tax recapture.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2022 at 2:20 PM.