Missing money investigation continues

By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer

April 11, 2007 11:56 pm

— The last person who admitted handling $11,141.25 missing from a drug forfeiture was a drug task force member for former Muskogee County District Attorney John David Luton, according to the current DA.
Muskogee County DA Larry Moore said Wednesday he just finished reading an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation report on the matter. Moore said the OSBI interviewed numerous people in Luton’s office.
Luton reported the missing money to the OSBI on March 23, 2006. The cash was seized from Marcus Walker in 2001.
“The money did exist in this office, and one particular drug task force member admitted having the money and said he placed it on another employee’s desk, saying that was the last time he saw it,” Moore said.
Moore said the secretary — on whose desk the task force officer said he placed the money — told investigators she never saw the money.
The task force member couldn’t remember what time of year, let alone what month or day, he put the money on the desk, Moore said.
Luton earlier said after he realized the funds were missing that he implemented new safeguards to keep it from happening again.
He said he and his secretary began counting the money together and independently, then would go together to the County Treasurer’s Office to deposit it. They would watch as the treasurer’s representative counted the money and then would get a receipt, Luton said.
A 2004 state audit of Luton’s office cited funds from six forfeiture cases filed during the years 2000 and 2001 were “neither receipted nor deposited until June 9, 2004.
Moore said he will refer the OSBI investigative report to the Attorney General’s Office. Because of a bitter campaign with Luton, he did not want to make a decision on filing charges against one of Luton’s former employees and have that construed by some as a conflict of interest.

Photos