ACFE-Heartland Chapter
Luncheon
Meeting
Tuesday,
September 13th, 2005
Park Inn
Regency Lodge
Lt. Mark Funkhouser of the Nebraska State Patrol was
our guest speaker for our September meeting.
Lt. Funkhouser spoke on a very interesting case he was assigned in
September of 2003. Also in attendance
to hear the presentation was Nebraska State Auditor Kate Witek. The case involved Nebraska State Treasurer
Loralee Byrd, who had been accused in 2003 of a number of improprieties in
office. The most serious of these
allegations involved inappropriate procedures during the issuance of what are
known as treasury warrants, whereby the state treasurer disburses funds to
various payees. There were also
allegations involving the intimidation of staff members within the Treasurer's
Office by both the treasurer and deputy treasurer during the course of the
investigation.
Lt. Funkhouser stated that the investigation took
approximately two months to complete.
At the conclusion of the investigation, Ms. Byrd ultimately pled guilty
to one count of Official Misconduct on November 26th, 2003. She was sentenced to 300 hours of community
service and resigned her position effective January 6th, 2004,
rather than face the possibility of impeachment by the State Legislature.
