Former small-town official accused of stealing $937,000 from Washington city

The former clerk-treasurer in the tiny town of Morton, Washington, is accused of stealing upwards of $900,000 from the city over nearly nine years.

A state audit released on Monday found the clerk-treasurer misappropriated $937,584 from the city coffers between 2013 and 2021 using unauthorized ATM withdrawals and other methods – including taking customer cash payments that she did not deposit at the bank and writing city checks to herself and recording them in the city’s accounting system as vendor payments.