Embezzling Jasper R-5 Board Secretary wants sentence tossed, says her lawyer did poor job

Karla Justice could have been sentenced to 35 years in prison for embezzling at least $145,716.81 and possibly much more from the Jasper R-5 School District.

Instead, Judge Douglas Harpool sentenced her to 30 months behind bars.

Apparently, only five months into her sentence,  Justice (formerly Jessee) has decided even 30 months is too much.

In a motion filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Justice asked that her sentence be tossed aside because her lawyer did a poor job. This time, she is acting as her own lawyer.

Justice says the lawyer, Elizabeth Turner, filed a "very good sentencing memorandum" but dropped the ball the day of the sentencing hearing when she failed to argue against a sentencing enhancement that added time to Justice's sentence.




In her sentencing memorandum, Turner noted that the methods used by Justice to steal the money should earn her a lighter sentence since sentencing guidelines call for more time for a "sophisticated" scheme.

"She wrote checks from the school accounts to family members, which would appear on bank statements and deposited checks and monthly on bank statements to the school district. If Ms. Justice was attempting to conduct a sophisticated scheme, it could be assumed she would have attempted to conceal her wrongdoing. This would also apply to the credit car transactions Ms. Justice was charging on behalf of the school district for her personal gain."

The fact that Justice's self dealings made her the highest paid employee in the district was also a dead giveaway, Turner noted.

The memorandum also included Justice's statement about how sorry she was for what she did to the school district.

Words cannot express the remorse I feel for the crimes I committed. At the time, I was in a very dark place and felt backed into a corner. I have struggled financially my entire life and being the oldest of 10 children has always made me feel as though it was my responsibility to help out each member of my family.

Justice acknowledged she stole the money and described the thievery as "shameful."
In addition to Turner's legal arguments and Justice's statement, the memorandum featured letters from her former husband, members of her church, friends and a social worker asking for leniency.




During the sentencing hearing, impact statements were given by R-5 Superintendent/High School Principal Christina Hess, former Superintendent Kathy Fall, Elementary Principal David Davis and third grade teacher Tami Maneval, who detailed the impact Justice's thievery had on the district, forcing it to drop programs and drastically cut costs.

The crimes were detailed in the news release issued by the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri after Justice's guilty plea.

Justice was employed as the head bookkeeper, payroll secretary, superintendent secretary, and board secretary for the Jasper R-5 School District from 2009 until her resignation on Sept. 22, 2016. Justice’s positions with the school district gave her unrestricted access to the account and payroll systems for the school district, as well as the district’s petty cash checkbook and signatory authority for this account. Justice essentially had unlimited access to every aspect of the account and human resources functions for the district.

By pleading guilty today, Justice admitted that she embezzled a total of $145,726 from the school district from September 2013 to September 2016.

Justice admitted that she paid herself $80,858 in additional payroll above and beyond the amount allowed under her employment contract. As a result of the fraudulently received payroll, Justice also received an additional $6,731 in employer retirement contributions and $6,530 in Social Security and Medicare contributions that she would not have received otherwise.

The investigation also discovered numerous transactions involving the petty cash account, including checks and E-checks that totaled $13,929 in transactions that were conducted by Justice to pay for personal expenses that were unrelated to the activities of the district, and were not authorized by the district.

Justice also opened and used a Home Depot credit card in the name of the district, without authority or the approval of any district official. Justice used the fraudulently opened Home Depot credit card to conduct several personal purchases between Jan. 6 and Sept. 1, 2016, totaling $2,133.

The investigation revealed numerous checks that had been written on the operating account for the district. Justice did not have authority to write checks to this account but she did have access to the signature stamps for school officials, who did have signatory authority over this account. Several district employees informed investigators that Justice repeatedly asked them to cash checks for her. School officials told investigators that each of the checks discovered during the investigation were fraudulently created and Justice’s request that other employees cash these checks and give her the money was done to bypass safety measures created to prevent employees from directly cashing checks made out to themselves.

According to today’s plea agreement, school officials began analyzing the district’s budget when the district experienced financial difficulties. During this analysis, officials noted irregularities in payroll payments, unexplained credit card payments, and missing monies from the petty cash account. When asked to reconcile the irregularities, Justice immediately wrote out a letter of resignation.

Under federal statutes, Justice is subject to a sentence of up to 35 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Carney. It was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Jasper County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department.