Deputy Trustee took $20,000 from office

A county official says her granddaughter stole more than $20,000 in property tax payments from the Anderson County Trustee?s office, but has repaid the money, resigned from the office and entered drug rehab.

Trustee Patsy Stair-Lomeli said her granddaughter, Deputy Trustee Katie P. Davis, admitted taking the money and deleting computer records to cover her tracks between December and April.

Stair-Lomeli said she learned of the thefts when property owners complained about getting tax notices after they had already paid their taxes.

She told her granddaughter in early May to either repay the money or face criminal prosecution. “She (Davis) had to pay it back,” Stair-Lomeli said.

Davis promptly resigned from the $31,500-a-year job that she had held for 10 years and repaid the trustee’s office $22,889.47, representing restitution of missing funds, interest and penalties, Stair-Lomeli said.

Assistant Chief Deputy Trustee Gwenda Ford, who is Stair-Lomeli’s daughter and Davis’ mother, blamed the thefts on her daughter’s addition to pain pills and said her daughter is now in recovery.

Ford blamed a co-worker in the six-person trustee office for disclosing the theft by distributing a copy of her daughter’s restitution check. “There’s a rat in this office,” she said.

A state audit is now under way.

“It just breaks my heart to have to leave office this way,” said Stair-Lomeli, who is preparing to retire after eight consecutive terms as trustee ? 32 years ? with an otherwise unblemished record.