TALLADEGA — Talladega County Circuit Judge Jerry Fielding sentenced former Talladega Water and Sewer Board teller Pat Borden to five years probation Thursday, pending receipt of her first restitution payment.Borden pleaded guilty to theft of property in the first degree in connection with the disappearance of $91,000 in water board funds. A special audit traced approximately $83,000 of that amount to Borden, who previously told the court she was using the money to buy lottery tickets in Georgia.
Borden's attorney, Clarence Dortch, presented Fielding with a letter from the Retirement Systems of Alabama, saying the money Borden had paid into her state account over a 24 year career would be refunded.
"The refund check will be made payable to ... Borden, and the check is expected to be placed in the U.S. mail service on Friday, to the address of the Circuit Clerk of Talladega County," the letter read.
Although the letter does not name a specific amount, District Attorney Steve Giddens said Thursday that he understood the account to contain approximately $20,000. "Once the clerk receives that check, it will be forwarded to the water board as restitution," Giddens said. Borden will then officially be on probation.
"Borden has said she would admit to taking about $20,000," Giddens said. "The state obviously does not agree with that. We will have to have a separate restitution hearing at some point in the future, where we will present evidence of how much was taken. We will be basing our argument on the audit, which shows an additional $60,000 can be traced back to Borden."
Giddens said no date had been set for the restitution hearing.
Borden and two other board employees, Janet Haywood and Cookie Adair, were terminated in 2002 in the wake of the discovery of the missing funds. The remaining $8,000 was traced to Haywood, who took the money for Borden, according to the audit.
Adair was terminated for failing to uncover the ongoing theft sooner, but Adair said the accounting procedures mandated by the board prevented her from maintaining a higher level of oversight.
A Daily Home investigation into the theft and subsequent terminations resulted in a lawsuit when attorneys for the board and board general manager George Montgomery argued that the board was exempt from Alabama's Open Records Act.
Although Fielding disagreed with this central assertion, he did rule in the board's favor regarding some recognized exceptions.
The board appealed this ruling to the state Supreme Court, where it is still pending. The Daily Home filed a cross appeal on some of the other issues raised.
Borden's five years of probation and restitution is the same as the sentences Fielding handed down to four former board members in 2000, after they entered guilty pleas to theft, use of public office for personal gain and, in one instance, multiple counts of perjury.
In addition to the restitution ordered by the grand jury that indicted them, all four former board members were also ordered to pay back ill-gotten funds discovered by the state Examiners of Public Accounts. These charge backs have not been collected to date.
