Union County Woman Faces Multiple Felony Embezzlement Charges
By Joe Hathaway on Monday, August 28th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
ELGIN — A Union County woman faces a slew of felony charges after allegedly embezzling more than $35,000 from an Elgin business.
50-year-old Stacy Follett was arrested in July after the owners of Billy Bob’s Butcher Shop in Elgin called the Union County Sheriff’s Office after discovering forged checks made out to Follett and her significant other.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the owners of the butcher shop met with a Union County Deputy and provided nine checks that were forged totaling $36,500.
The owners said Follet was a close friend and worked for them at the butcher shop as the Assistant Officer Manager. In that role, Follett had access to company checks.
According to the affidavit “Stacy’s duties included payroll, paying bills, balancing the credit card and managing the bank transactions. (The owners) both stated they trusted Stacy to the point that Stacy would often bring (the owner) a blank check and tell him to sign it for a bill that needed to be paid and he would.”
The owners then stated their business started facing financial troubles once Stacy became Officer Manager. They had to take out a second mortgage, sell their truck and “were scared they were going to lose everything.”
Union County Deputies then conducted interviews with Follett and her significant other and found the checks were deposited into either her bank account or the couple’s joint account.
According to the affidavit, Follett confessed to deceiving the owners and writing eight of the nine checks, with a combined total of $35,200, to herself and her significant other.
The Union County District Attorney’s office says the other fraudulent check is still being investigated.
Follett also admitted to endorsing the back of the checks written out to her significant other without him knowing of the theft.
She was arrested and charged with first-degree aggravated theft, a Class B felony, eight counts of theft by deception, eight counts of forgery and eight counts of negotiating a bad check, which are all Class C felonies.
She had her first court appearance on August 22.
