Former Connell bookkeeper admits embezzling $53,485 from cemetery district

A former Connell bookkeeper will be barred from working in accounting for 10 years after admitting that she embezzled thousands from Franklin County Cemetery District No. 2.

Monica Lou Pruett’s guilty plea Tuesday involved $53,485 skimmed through her business, Lierman Business Services.

She had been charged in Franklin County Superior Court with two counts of first-degree theft, but entered the plea to an amended felony charge known as “injury to and misappropriation of record.”

Pruett, 61, was the mayor pro tem of the Connell City Council until her resignation in September 2012 in the midst of another theft case, in which she took $160,142 from a Mesa farmer to pay her personal utility bills, property taxes and business expenses.

Pruett was in prison last summer when charges were filed for taking at least $7,000 in a six-month period from another Mesa farmer. Prosecutors alleged that she altered the amounts on farm checks that were deposited into her business bank account.

Toby Cochran, a former Franklin County Cemetery District No. 2 commissioner, reported the district’s losses to the State Auditor’s Office in July 2012 after learning of the investigation into Pruett’s business practices with the first Mesa farm.

The cemetery district covers Mountain View Cemetery in Connell. As the district’s business manager, Pruett was responsible for depositing money from plot sales and gravesite closing fees into the district’s account.

The state investigation found Pruett failed to deposit $14,025 from plot sales and $5,010 from fees for digging and closing up gravesites. Another $2,100 went toward payments to her private business.

The state also determined Pruett received another $32,350 in “questionable” compensation.

The theft occurred between January 2004 and June 2012. The auditor’s office couldn’t say if more money was taken because of missing public records.

Pruett, in pleading guilty, said some of the minutes for the district meetings were either lost, erased or destroyed. Those records or papers did relate to her secretarial position, she wrote, and “I did have a duty to preserve them.”

Pruett’s sentencing is set for Feb. 17. She faces up to 12 months in county jail for the crime.

Prosecutors will recommend a one-year sentence to run together with Pruett’s current two-year prison sentence, according to court documents. She reportedly is close to completing that term, and will get credit for time served with this case.

Prosecutor Shawn Sant will dismiss all theft charges and won’t file anything additional that may arise out of this case or a related investigation, he said. Pruett “agrees not to engage in any bookkeeping or accounting endeavors for the period of 10 years.”

A restitution amount will be determined at a later hearing.

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Former Connell bookkeeper admits embezzling $53,485 from cemetery district."