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Former La Center Little League treasurer accused of embezzlement

By Jessica Prokop, Columbian Local News Editor
Published: January 22, 2016, 10:39pm

The former treasurer of the La Center Little League has been charged in Clark County Superior Court with embezzling thousands of dollars from the organization.

A prosecuting attorney filed the charges against Liska A. Stokes on Thursday. She faces accusations of first-degree theft, tampering with physical evidence and money laundering, and has been summoned to appear in Superior Court on Feb. 16, court records show.

Stokes served as the organization’s treasurer from 2011 to February 2015. It’s unclear how much money was stolen. However, a probable cause affidavit cites an amount between $9,492 and $23,028, which was determined by accountant Tiffany Couch of Acuity Forensics.

“It is important to recognize that this primarily happened in 2013 and 2014,” the current league president, Rick Goode, said in a news release. “Our current Little League Board of Directors and the one in place throughout last year have nothing whatsoever to do with this crime. When evidence that something had gone seriously wrong became overwhelming in the winter of 2014-15, we were all shocked.”

According to the affidavit, Stokes also is accused of destroying physical evidence by erasing the financial information stored in QuickBooks on the league’s laptop. She entered false financial information into the program before returning the laptop upon her resignation, court documents said.

Stokes also is suspected of obtaining a $5,000 loan from a family friend via IQ Credit Union and then procuring a cashier’s check from Unitus Credit Union to repay a portion of the stolen funds to the league, the affidavit said. She confided in the league’s secretary, Charis Watson, about taking cash for personal use, court records said.

Most of the missing money is associated with concession stand sales income that was never deposited in the league’s bank account, according to the news release.

“While we are hugely disappointed that something like this happened, we are grateful that the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office will include pursuit of our league receiving full financial restitution as part of justice taking its course,” Goode said.

In late 2014, the Little League board started to become suspicious of financial reports being issued by Stokes because of fiscal inadequacies. When Stokes resigned from her position, the board then contracted for an independent forensic audit of all financial records over the past three years, the news release said. The audit, which was completed last summer, found “obvious criminal activity” and was sent to the La Center Police Department, according to the news release.

Police then conducted their own investigation and recommended charges to the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office.

Since discovering the missing money, the board voted to contract for independent financial audits each year in the future. It also adopted strict double verification and authorization protocols, the former league President Pete Rasmussen said in the news release.

“We are now looking to put this unfortunate event behind us, and focus on a successful 2016 Little League season,” he said.

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