(COLFAX, WA) – When Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker
received a call from the Shelton Police Department two weeks ago and was
informed that former county Finance Director Cinnamon Brown had been arrested
in Shelton on embezzlement charges, she was both surprised and nervous.
“At
first, I wasn’t real calm,” said Coker. Coker Tuesday advised county
commissioners an internal audit investigation has been launched here to see if
any fraud was committed here during Brown’s three-year stint as finance
director. So far they have not found anything, the auditor reported.
Brown was
first employed by the county in 2008 in the environmental health department
before moving to public health and then named finance director in 2013.
Coker
reported she spoke with the state auditor’s office Wednesday, March 1, via
telephone, and they advised her to check off on the local review in two months.
She said the state office would likely send a team to investigate if something
turns up in the review, which is now underway.
Sheriff Brett Myers told the
Gazette last week that no criminal case is being pursued against Brown here,
but if something was to come to light, a case would be pursued. Coker said the
state auditor’s office is taking the same approach.
Coker said the auditor’s
office has given the county a checklist of areas to investigate and how to
investigate them. Commissioner Art Swannack, in the commissioners meeting
Monday, said the investigation is ongoing, but not all processes involved will
be made public.
