A former clerk and treasurer in Lewis County has been charged in federal court with a nine-year wire fraud scheme to steal nearly $1 million in city funds.
Investigators believe Tamara Clevenger, the former Morton city clerk-treasurer, embezzled $937,584 from taxpayers from 2013 to 2021, according to charging documents unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
During a routine inspection in October 2022, state auditors noticed more than $10,000 in ATM cash withdrawals from the city’s bank account from 2019 to 2021.
“Cities typically do not need to make ATM withdrawals as part of regular operations,” the state auditor’s office noted.
The state auditor’s office released initial findings in August 2024.
“What is so incredible in this case is that the leadership of Morton took no action when they had been informed of two different problems with the clerk-treasurer. We say, ‘trust but verify,’ for a reason,” state Auditor Pat McCarthy said in statement at the time. “Blind trust doesn’t protect the public’s money. Proper controls do.”
Further investigation revealed Clevenger stole at least $311,727 of cash from payments made to the city for services, according to the federal charges.
“To conceal her fraud, Clevenger wrote checks from the City to the City
in the amount that equaled the stolen cash (a “check for cash” substitution) in order to reconcile the missing cash in the City’s accounting records. Clevenger then deposited the unauthorized checks into the City’s bank account to hide her theft,” the court documents state.
Prosecutors believe the clerk used checks the mayor had pre-signed for emergencies. Clevenger also allegedly wrote checks to herself as a vendor payment. She deposited about $625,857 in fraudulent checks into her personal bank account from 2013 to 2021, according to the charges.
Investigators say Clevenger used interstate wires to commit fraudulent transfers between bank accounts, including a $5,808 transfer from Washington to Umpqua Bank servers out of state.
The FBI, IRS and state auditor’s office collaborated on the criminal investigation.
Morton is a small city about 90 miles south of Seattle with just over 1,000 people. The city’s operates on an annual budget of about $4.6 million, collecting nearly $1.4 million in utility revenue and $860,000 in tax revenue, according to state auditors.
“I commend the State Auditor’s Office for their good work on this case,” Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller said in a news release. “It is critical that all of our government entities have multiple safeguards in place to prevent the theft of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”