NEWS

Rapides Police Jury hires law firm to try to recover stolen DA funds

Richard Sharkey
rsharkey@thetowntalk.com, (318) 487-6490

A Natchitoches law firm is being hired by the Rapides Parish Police Jury to sue an insurance company to try to recoup money allegedly stolen by a woman from the District Attorney’s Office.

Margaruette Beard

Margaruette Beard of Elmer is accused of stealing more than $1.3 million from the District Attorney’s Office while she was a bookkeeper there. Beard was 66 when she was arrested in January by Louisiana State Police and charged with felony theft, first-degree injuring of public records and malfeasance in office.

The Police Jury, after meeting in executive session Monday, unanimously agreed to hire Corkern, Crews, Guillet & Johnson, LLC, of Natchitoches as its counsel in the case against Beard and Travelers Insurance.

Jurors want to collect on an insurance claim against the Employee Dishonest Policy issued to the Police Jury by Travelers Insurance.

Police Jury President Craig Smith said any money recovered through the litigation would go to various agencies — including the jury — which were supposed to receive the funds that went missing.

Craig Smith

The District Attorney’s Office usually represents the Police Jury on litigation, but it will not on this one because of a potential conflict of interest, said DA Phillip Terrell.

Terrell and Assistant DA Tom Wells, who is the Police Jury’s counsel, did not sit in on the jury’s executive session.

“The jury gave us authority to sue Travelers Insurance Co. to move forward against them, add them to the (DA’s) suit, because we had attempted to settle that case with them. We were unable to do so, (through) negotiations,” so the DA’s office planned to file a lawsuit on behalf of the Police Jury, Terrell said.

“We determined that we had a potential conflict of interest” because some of the funds missing from the asset forfeiture fund “may be owed to the criminal cost account, so the Police Jury may have an interest in those.”

“We believe we have a fiduciary duty to any agency that is owed money, so therefore we thought there might be a potential conflict of interest,” Terrell said.

He expects other agencies with a financial interest in the missing funds to join in litigation. If money is recovered, Terrell said, “we will ask the court to determine under the statue — we’ll ask for a declaratory judgment, in effect — to whom each amount of money should be paid.”

Phillip Terrell

The DA’s office has recused itself from the criminal prosecution of Beard because DA employees will be witnesses in the case. The Louisiana Attorney General's Office is handling the criminal prosecution.

The AG’s office gave the Police Jury permission to hire special counsel concerning civil litigation against Beard and Travelers.

The DA’s office filed a lawsuit against Beard on May 27, seeking more than $1.3 million. The lawsuit listed a total of $1,342,820 that was stolen from the DA's office. Terrell said the actual amount is believed to be higher, but it’s hard to determine exactly how much money was missing, noting the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's Office reported difficulty finding details prior to 2009.

Beard had worked at the DA’s office since 1988. Terrell took office in January 2015 and hired a finance director in June of that year. The director noticed financial discrepancies and found that funds had been diverted to cover stolen funds, the DA’s office reported.

Rapides DA files civil suit against woman in theft case

“… it was determined that approximately $700,000.00 in asset forfeiture money was unaccounted for and/or missing from the DA’s accounts,” the DA’s suit said.

Beard was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 26, 2015, and she resigned the same day. An investigation was conducted by State Police and the Legislative Auditor’s Office, leading to her arrest.

Investigators found "cash, evidence envelopes, firearms and jewelry” in locked file cabinets and drawers in Beard’s office, according to the DA’s lawsuit. Armed with a search warrant, State Police found 75 evidence envelopes in two of Beard's drawer, containing $70,869.43. The lawsuit said there should have been $129,280.47 in those envelopes.

Beard is accused of using the money to gamble, buy personal property and convert funds for her own personal use, the DA’s lawsuit said.