ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A former city clerk for a small Interior Alaska community was sentenced Tuesday for embezzling over $140,000 in funds from the city’s bank account.
The Department of Law charged 37-year-old Trista Nichole Jennings with first-degree theft and scheme to defraud — both felony charges — in May 2023 after it was discovered that Jennings had stolen $141,859.17 during her time as city clerk, beginning in 2018 for the community that sits along the Parks Highway between the towns of Healy and Nenana.
According to a state press release, Jennings took a plea deal with Superior Court Judge Kirk Schwalm to serve three years in jail with half of that (18 months) suspended. Jennings will also be placed on probation for the duration of the three years.
The department states that Anderson Mayor Samantha Thomson filed a report saying all of the city’s bank accounts had been emptied “over the previous couple years,” telling Alaska State Troopers that Jennings was the one who did it.
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In a redacted complaint filed by Thomson, a city accountant said she had been unable to access four bank accounts for the city for around six months and was given “multiple excuses” from Jennings on why that was.
A state trooper affidavit supporting the complaint said that the theft was discovered when Jennings wrote personal checks to multiple city accounts that initially bounced before the bank credited the accounts for the amount of each check before it cleared. The affidavit said each check Jennings wrote was for larger and larger amounts.
Jennings reportedly transferred funds from each cashed check before it was denied, the affidavit said.
“Trista would then write a more significant amount that covered the original check and have extra,” the statement said. “She would then transfer those credited funds for the new check before the bank discovered insufficient funds to cover it.”
The affidavit also noted that Jennings hid transactions from other city employees to ensure the theft would not show up during city council meetings, which investigators looked into by checking meeting minutes.
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Troopers found Jennings at her home on May 16, 2023, and when asked why she transferred over $100,000 into her own accounts, she told them she did not know why, but that it was “to get stuff done.” The affidavit states that Jennings used the money to “get stuff done on the house” when she and her husband were not making enough money.
Troopers also claim to have found “several TVs, gaming consoles, two all-in-one computers, two laptops, and a [3D] printer.”
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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