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Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Wilcox cost Sheriff’s Office over $30K before money was reimbursed by estate
DAVENPORT—Kathryn Wilcox, the former chief civil deputy for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), allegedly misappropriated, or stole, over $20,000 and caused over $10,000 in “questionable losses” within the Sheriff’s Office between 2017 and 2019, documents released by the Washington State Auditor today confirmed.
Wilcox, who passed away of cancer in Oct. 2020, allegedly misappropriated $20,173 between Jan. 3, 2017 and Dec. 5, 2019, a Sheriff’s Office internal investigation discovered. According to records, LCSO informed the state auditor of potential loss of public funds on Oct. 2, 2020.
The state auditor’s subsequent investigation discovered “additional questionable losses” of $10,789 between the same time period, according to records.
LCSO’s internal investigation found the grand total of stolen funds to be around $30,000, but the state auditor divided the funds into “misappropriated” and “questionable” categories, Sheriff Wade Magers said.
Wilcox went on extended medical leave as she battled cancer in March 2020, and then-administrative assistant Denise Liebing was promoted to fill the chief civil deputy position. Liebing discovered that Wilcox had thrown bank records, civil paperwork and check registers into LCSO’s shred bin, according to records.
Liebing also found that cash and check payments for civil activities, most of which were concealed pistol licenses, hadn’t been receipted and deposited to LCSO’s civil checking account, records state.
465 cash receipts total definitively couldn’t be traced to a subsequent bank deposit to total $20,173, while an additional 97 check payments totaling $10,789 also couldn’t be traced and were determined by the auditor to be questionable, according to records.
Both county prosecutor Adam Walser and Magers said they never saw any bank statements to confirm where the $10,789 in “questioned funds” went.
Wilcox confessed to the theft of funds to Magers and undersheriff Kelly Watkins on Sept. 29, 2020, records state. Magers also said that she confessed before the state auditor investigation began.
“She would take cash and check permit payments, which were usually concealed carry permits,” Magers said. “She was keeping a certain percentage of that cash.”
Magers added that “misappropriation” is the language used by the auditor’s office, while LCSO’s considers Wilcox’s actions to be theft.
When the family members representing Wilcox’s estate learned of LCSO’s internal findings in 2020, they promised to repay LCSO in full once the state auditor’s investigation was complete, Magers said.
“We wanted to wait and have the state auditor check our numbers to confirm before we called them asking for the money,” Magers said.
A representative of Wilcox’s estate brought a check totaling $35,833 to LCSO on Nov. 23, 2021, according to records. Magers said the family had been alerted of a draft of the auditor’s findings the previous day.
“They were appalled and embarrassed and wrote us a full check,” Magers said. “We don’t know why she would do this, and neither does her family.”
The auditor’s office’s investigation blamed the embezzlement on inadequate internal controls within Lincoln County for safeguarding public resources.
"The county and department lacked adequate controls and segregation of duties over cash receipting, depositing and reconciliations to ensure cash and check payments for the civil account were properly safeguarded and reconciled timely,” records state. “These weaknesses allowed the misappropriation to occur.”
The county’s response, which Magers also spoke to, said Lincoln County’s rural and less populated status with some fiscal restraints deems it necessary that several responsibilities be delegated to one staff member.
“(Wilcox) had been handling those responsibilities since roughly 2008,” Magers said.
Two people, Stephanie Dunn and Liebing, now work in LCSO’s civil administrative office. Magers said the county’s small size means the civil checkbook and its deposits are still sometimes done by one person.
“The reality is that when you have somebody dealing with cash, that’s one of your vulnerabilities in any agency,” Magers said. “The process is often the same, but now we have two people counting it.”
The state auditor said they’ll be forwarding their findings to the Lincoln County Prosecutor’s Office. However, the county considers the case closed and that to be boilerplate language because Wilcox is deceased, Adam Walser said.
“Even if we wanted to go after her estate civilly, there’s no reason to, because they already paid the county back in full,” Walser said.
The county’s response in the state auditor records echoes a similar sentiment.
“Representatives from the State Auditor’s Office have been made aware of the processes implemented by Lincoln County and agree that they are a satisfactory response to this event,” records state. “As such, Lincoln County considers this matter closed.”
This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. on Dec. 14.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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