DIBBLE, Okla.– Teddy Wooten says several months went by without Friends Country Church in Dibble getting a water bill.
“We just didn’t know what was going on. You know, we (were) just expecting we (were) going to get a big water bill. Just didn’t think they (were) doing their job. We didn’t know anything about what was going on,” said Wooten.
It surprised him to hear that Brandy Dover, the Dibble city clerk, was charged with embezzling more than $75,000.
“They must’ve just been letting her run the whole show,” said Wooten.
“She was the sole holder of that money and was the only one that had access to the money, the cash and the safe. So if it’s missing, there’s only one person that you look to,” said McClain County District Attorney, Greg Mashburn.
According to the probable cause affidavit, “Dover’s duties included receiving payments for fines and water bills, making bank deposits and payments of the City’s obligations.”
In court documents, it says the mayor “told Dover he discovered she had not deposited any cash into the bank account.”
She admitted it, but told him “she was holding back cash to make change.”
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation started looking into it and the town council hired a CPA to examine the records.
That CPA found there was a cash shortage of $75,638.24 for the period from September 2014 to February 2016.
The district attorney says they run into this with small towns every once in a while and that it’s never a good idea to have only one person in charge of all the money.
“No matter how small a business, no matter how long a person has worked for you, you want to make sure that there’s some kind of checks and balances,” said Mashburn.
Dover’s attorney, Jose Gonzalez, tells us Dover plead not guilty.
He says she did not take that money.
When asked if she had an explanation for where that money went, he said she did, but that they were not ready to discuss it at this time.
