News Editor
An Altha woman was arrested last week on grand theft charges after over $26,000 was discovered missing from a Calhoun Correctional Institution (CaCI) account.Lisa McLendon, 47, was taken into custody Tuesday and given a conditional release the following day.
According to the arrest affidavit, McLendon is a classification officer at CaCI and in charge of two canteens at the prison, one in the main unit and another at the work camp. She was responsible for depositing funds collected throughout the week into the Employee Benefit Trust Fund. After it was discovered $26,187 was missing from the account, an investigator with the Inspector General’s Office was called in to conduct an internal audit. An inmate assigned as canteen operator reported McLendon was not picking up the money on a regular schedule and it often remained in a drop safe. Between March 21 and July 18, 2011, cash totalling $26,187 was not deposited by McLendon, however, McLendon signed a daily sales report indicating she received at least $12,737 from the canteen. Of the remaining $13,450, other employees signed for $6142 picked up in McLendon’s absence. Due to missing daily sales reports, it is unknown who collected the remaining $7308.
Monthly sales journal records retrieved from McLendon’s computer indicate she was underreporting the amount of cash collected from April through June 2011. The discrepancy was discovered in July. Authorities noted McLendon attempted to make the last two sales deposits into the CaCI account by writing two checks from her personal checking account. The checks, totalling $11,557.80, bounced.
Investigators contacted McLendon several times, but she reportedly “made herself unavailable to be interviewed.”