Former Mississippi Municipal Worker Indicted For $900K Embezzlement Scheme

Ginger Lynn Lashley, 50, of St. Andrews, Mississippi, was indicted yesterday on charges she embezzled $890,827.58 from Jackson County, for whom she had been employed as an accounts payable clerk. Authorities allege that Lashley embezzled funds from the county over an eight year period, beginning in 2001 until she was arrested last November. Prosecutors allege that Lashley created a phony entity, "The Jackson County Food Drive" and set up a bank account into which she deposited checks intended for the county. Instead she used the funds for her own benefit. Lashley was indicted on 8 felony embezzlement counts.

Read the story here and here.

Read the indictment here.

Update (9/22/10): Lashley pleaded not guilty to the charges. Nevertheless, it has been reported that in 1990, she pleaded guilty to 26 counts of embezzlement from another business and was placed on five years’ probation and ordered to pay $7,451.98 in restitution.

Update (4/20/11): Lashley has now pleaded guilty to 8 felony counts of embezzlement.

Update (4/22/11): Lashley was found dead early this morning at the Rankin County Correctional Facility where she was being held. The cause of death has not yet been determined. She had reportedly suffered from diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. An autopsy is to be performed.

Update (4/25/11): Lashley's death was ruled a "natural death," from coronary artery disease, according to the Rankin County Coroner, Jimmy Roberts, who described her health as a "walking time bomb" as a result of her various health ailments and conditions, including diabetes and pulmonary disease. Her case has been described as the single largest embezzlement in Mississippi state history.