AP audit alerts village officials to ambulance squad treasurer’s embezzlement

An accounts payable audit conducted by the Evans Mills Fire Department revealed that the former secretary-treasurer of the Northern New York village's ambulance squad may have misappropriated as much as $11,000, according to the Watertown Daily Times.

Sarah Bice was recently arrested on a felony charge of third-degree grand larceny after the AP audit uncovered numerous electronic transfers of varying sums of money from the squad's checking account to her personal bank account between December 2009 and September of last year.

Bice has since been released without bail pending grand jury action.

Last year, a town clerk from nearby Lewis pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $250,000 from the town, as well as an additional $676,401 from two local dairy cooperatives, according to a separate article by the news source.

Melissa Wagner-Dano misappropriated the money by moving it from the town's account to the dairy cooperatives' accounts via check and wire transfer. In October 2010, she was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.