News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The resignation and conviction of former Jackson County Clerk Amanda Stafford came after a lengthy investigation by multiple agencies.
Assistant District Attorney Ian Bratton prosecuted the criminal case. He said the investigation took a while and there were a number of twists along the way.
The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office began an investigation into Stafford’s actions after a surprise cash county on October 22, 2018 showed over $37,000 of bank deposits were missing. Two days later, investigators found the bank bags with corresponding checks but none of the cash.
Bratton said what followed was an admission of guilt from Stafford.
“At that point, she did write out a confession,” Bratton said. “She had been taking the cash money, and the deposits were delayed because she was trying to get the money together to put back in it so she could make the deposits.”
According to a Comptroller’s report on the investigation, the next day, on October 25, 2018, Stafford ordered her staff to search the office. They found a bag containing over $11,000 dollars. Bratton said Stafford then recanted her confession.
“The missing money miraculously appeared in the money bag that was hidden behind one of her employees drawer’s,” Bratton said. “So when you looked at it, the drawer wouldn’t close all the way because there was a full money bag behind it. She, at that point, repudiated her confession and said the secretary must have stolen the money.”
Bratton said that was when the full-scale Comptroller’s investigation began.
“That incident was the basis for the Comptroller’s theft charge,” Bratton said. “Once they got involved, they saw irregularities in what they believed in Sales Tax collections, which then involved the Department of Revenue, who did a long, in-depth, investigation. It took forever.”
The investigation found Stafford altered at least 52 vehicle registrations applications in order to misappropriate funds to herself. Bratton said that is what took the Revenue Department investigation so long.
“The needed to interview every single person they could to compare their original receipt that they took after they paid their Sales Tax to the clerk versus what was registered in the system,” Bratton said. “That required interviewing dozens and dozens of people, and it took a long time. It was an exceedingly thorough investigation, but it was a lengthy one. That aggregated theft from all those different sources was where the second theft amount came from.”
The investigation estimated that Stafford misappropriated over $25,000 in taxpayer money from May 2018 to December 2019.
Stafford resigned her position on May 8. Twenty days later, she pleaded guilty to two counts of theft over $2,500 dollars, both Class-D felonies. She received two years of probation and was ordered to pay $10,000 dollars of restitution.
Due to the felonies on her record, Stafford is now ineligible to hold elected office.
