Alleged theft of $100,000 from a township and a Sunburg, Minnesota, church leads to charges against sisters

WILLMAR

— A Sunburg girl and her sister every are dealing with a number of felony theft prices that allege the embezzlement of almost $100,000 from a church and a township.

Debra Kaye Hamborg, 60, of

Sunburg

, and Annette Marie Dingmann, 59, of

Benson

, of their most up-to-date Kandiyohi County District Court docket hearings every waived their constitutional rights to a separate lawyer.

The 2 appeared March 21 in omnibus hearings over Zoom from the workplace of lawyer Theresa Jean Walton Patock, of Willmar.

Hamborg is charged with 19 counts of felony theft and theft by swindle for allegedly misappropriating almost $100,000 of mixed funds throughout her time as bookkeeper for Sunburg Free Lutheran Church and treasurer of Norway Lake Township.

Dingmann is charged with 10 related felony counts plus two misdemeanor theft prices. The quantities listed in her prices whole greater than $18,000 allegedly deposited in accounts held collectively by her and different members of the family. The opposite members of the family will not be charged with any wrongdoing.

Prices towards Hamborg had been first filed in October, and the fees towards Dingmann had been filed in November.

Dingmann pleaded not responsible to all prices Tuesday, in line with courtroom information, whereas Hamborg has not but entered a plea to any of the fees towards her.

In the course of the listening to Tuesday, Choose Jennifer Fischer stated that the ladies will not be listed as co-defendants and he or she particularly outlined to every of them the doable perils of twin illustration, similar to an lawyer favoring one consumer or limiting claims the lawyer could make within the protection of every.

Hamborg and Dingmann throughout their hearings every verbally waived their proper to a different lawyer.

The following hearings for each girls are set for the morning of April 27, one after the opposite.

In keeping with the legal criticism towards Dingmann, each girls stated there was an association for Hamborg to switch cash to Dingmann. Hamborg throughout one interview with regulation enforcement stated she had on her personal supported Dingmann and two of Dingmann’s members of the family for fairly a while after Dingmann misplaced her job.

The criticism didn’t specify Hamborg’s full-time employment. She stated she was paid $300 per 30 days as township treasurer, plus $50 per assembly, and that her companies to the church had been unpaid.

Dingmann in a separate interview stated she suffered determine theft and that led to monetary hardship, and that she had been utilizing the church and township cash supplied by Hamborg to help her household, in line with the criticism.

The alleged theft from Sunburg Free Lutheran Church totals greater than $81,000 over 5 years from 2018 to 2022, in line with the criticism. It states there have been fraudulent checks or prices totaling greater than $18,000 from Norway Lake Township over two years, from 2020 to 2022.

In keeping with the legal criticism towards Hamborg, a deputy met Feb. 2, 2022, with a member of the

Sunburg Free Lutheran Church

who stated {that a} Benson financial institution had notified him about suspicious checks being cashed.

The checks, totaling $4,500 inside 30 days, had been allegedly written out by Hamborg and made to Dingmann, two different members of the family and an account for a Sunburg dairy farm. In keeping with the church member, Hamborg was the one individual with entry to the church’s checks.

On Feb. 3, the deputy adopted up the report by talking with Hamborg at her residence.

In keeping with the criticism, Hamborg said that she knew the deputy was there as a result of she wrote a verify she shouldn’t have. She then stated that her sister, Dingmann, had points with funds after being the sufferer of identification theft and he or she wrote checks to assist her out.

At the moment, Hamborg had been bookkeeping for the Sunburg Free Lutheran Church for greater than six years, in line with the criticism.

Hamborg voluntarily supplied carbon copy booklets and the checkbook to the deputy.

The carbon copies of the checks confirmed {that a} whole of $47,000 of checks had been written to the three members of the family and the dairy farm from Could 2, 2021, by way of Could 2, 2022.

One other financial institution supplied copies of checks from the Sunburg Free Church account from 2016 to 2018. Financial institution employees estimated that the quantity the church misplaced was larger than the one supplied on the copies, in line with the criticism.

In keeping with the criticism towards Dingmann, a detective on Feb. 8, 2022, made contact with a member of the

Norway Lake Township Board

, who stated {that a} evaluation of township funds had begun because of suspicions that Hamborg was embezzling funds.

In keeping with the board member, some checks had been issued to a number of kin of Hamborg. He defined the township indicators checks solely at month-to-month conferences and that checks issued on different dates can be suspect.

He stated the Norway Lake Township account is ready as much as require signatures of each the chairperson and the treasurer on checks. He suspected that Hamborg had been forging the chairperson’s signature.

A accomplice within the dairy farm instructed the investigating detective that he seen quite a few checks over the previous few years had been written from their farm checking account to 2 of his members of the family, together with Dingmann. He stated giant deposits going into the farm account had been similar to the checks written out to the 2 kin, in line with the criticism.

Each Dingmann and Hamborg are at the moment on launch with circumstances, together with exclusion from the Sunburg Free Lutheran Church and the Norway Lake Township constructing, having no contact with church management or township board members, and never dealing with different individuals’s funds.