A former Morrill County woman is facing felony charges for embezzling from the Bayard Cemetery District when she served as its secretary-treasurer.
69-year-old Joyce Mick of Lincoln will be arraigned in Morrill County District Court January 3rd on charges of theft by unlawful taking $5,000 or more and theft by unlawful taking of $1,500 to $5,000.
Court documents do not give details, a State Auditor’s report on the cemetery district in August said financial records showed Mick paid herself close to $16,000 more in total gross salary than she should have received from Jan 2019 to Oct 2021.
The report also noted thousands of dollars in payments during the same time period that auditors said appeared “unusual for a cemetery district”, but it did not cite Mick as a direct beneficiary of those payments.
The charges were filed at the end of October by Assistant Nebraska Attorney General Gail VerMaas, acting as Special Deputy Morrill County Attorney, following an investigation assisted by the Nebraska State Patrol.