Circuit Clerk's Office takes steps to prevent misuse of funds again
May 8—FAIRMONT — Marion County Circuit Clerk Belinda Biafore has taken steps to prevent fraud from taking place in the office after reports surfaced that a former Marion County Circuit Court Clerk used public funds for personal gain.
"What I have done is made sure I sign off on any invoice that comes onto my desk," Biafore said. "No one else in the office has the ability to order or use a credit card without my knowledge. I've taken over payroll duties as well as the budget because I'm a lot more familiar with the financial end of it."
On Tuesday, the Times West Virginian obtained a new documents from the Clerk's office after filing a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents show that former Clerk Robin Tucker was reimbursed for roughly $103,000 from 2012 to 2022. Those reimbursements cover both legitimate and illegitimate purchases, Biafore said. County Attorney Chuck Shields said most of the illegitimate purchases happened after 2020.
Among the legitimate entries on the log are references to work-related trips Tucker took at some point during her tenure at the Clerk's office. However, Biafore pointed out Tucker should not have used her personal credit card to make work-related payments as the county has a credit card for employee work-related expenses. Other reasonable office-related reimbursements are shown in this second round of documents.
However, not all reimbursements were legitimate. Aside from the payments to West Virginia University, Tucker spent a little over $15,000 on high end computers in 2022. Tucker ordered three Dell XPS desktop computers and nine HP Envy desktop computers.
However, an email between Brenda Bray, courthouse purchasing clerk, and an Amazon customer service representative shows that the order was canceled and refunded. Biafore said this took place from one day to the next. It's not clear what the $15,000 reimbursed to Tucker was used for. Biafore noted that the WVU expenses already showed up in the reimbursement log, so the money from the $15,000 reimbursement most likely didn't go there.
Tucker also purchased 11 Intel mini PCs for the office in 2020. Those PCs did make their way to the Circuit Clerk's Office. However, Tucker once again placed the expense on her personal card rather than the office card. Biafore suspects Tucker received credit card points for the purchase. Tucker also received a reimbursement of $500 in petty cash. It's not known what that money was used for.
Biafore said the W.Va. State Auditor has all the invoices related to county credit card expenses that Tucker didn't make for office-related purchases. Their investigation continues, Biafore said.
"We've cracked down," she said. "Especially with invoicing and me signing off. If it doesn't have my signature, I've told bookkeeping it's not to get paid."
As for signature rubber stamps used by the office, Biafore said those are still in use. However, those are no longer to be used for financial purposes, but are reserved solely for court orders or other legal documents.
Although the Marion County Commission does approve budgets for the Circuit Clerk's Office, they have no say in how the office is run, Biafore said. How Tucker snuck the education and computer-related reimbursements past the budget oversight process flummoxed Marion County Administrator Kris Cinalli. He said budgets are audited, but nothing ever raised a red flag.
"It seems to have gone on for a while," Cinalli said. "To not have raised any suspicions or put up any major flags, I think we're going to have to see the whole picture and see exactly what happened and how it happened and then try to address it accordingly."
What further complicates Cinalli's ability to catch suspicious expenses is that Cinalli is responsible for managing $15 million of the county's money. Unless something is egregious, it's difficult to catch something that might be flagged, he said. Nothing related to Tucker's reimbursements ever crossed the threshold of egregious that would have caught Cinalli's eye. Further, after a budget is approved and the money goes out, the County Commission no longer has the ability to monitor what an office does with their money. An office can change its budget priorities as needed.
However, it appears the reimbursements never made it to Cinalli's eyes.
"I don't think we ever approved those amounts," he said. "I don't think they were ever really requested. But again, once those budget lines are approved, they can always modify them. I'm guessing that's what happened. But again, I haven't seen it. I'm not really sure how it all transpired."
Like Biafore, Cinalli awaits the results of the State Auditor's investigation. He wants to find a way to stop this from happening again in the future, but without more clarity on where the fault was, there's not much he can do, he said.
"With the auditor's office involved, I'm sure they can give us some pointers on what to watch out for next time," he said.
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
