Embezzlement is at “epidemic proportions,” and prosecutors agree that gambling is behind much of it.

Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Moore made the statement Friday, noting district attorneys across the state have seen a noticeable increase in embezzlement and fraud.

“The consensus is — it’s the gambling factor,” he said. “We’re seeing people (defendants) in all walks of life who had not previously done any crimes.”

The last six to eight years, there’s been a “crescendo of embezzlements,” said U.S. Attorney Sheldon Sperling.

“Almost every embezzlement is driven by vice — which, for at least the last five years, has been gambling,” Sperling said.

He said most embezzlements over half a million dollars are almost always rooted in gambling, with the exception of former Marble City School Superintendent Larry Couch.

Couch entered federal prison at El Reno last week to serve five years for embezzling approximately $1 million from the school.

“Couch invested his embezzled funds in real estate,” Sheldon said.

That meant the money could be recovered and paid back to the school, he said.

The other motivation in large embezzlements seems to be high living or supporting family members, he said.

Rhonda Harris, in prison for embezzling from a Wagoner bank, bought horses, houses and property for herself and related families.

A former McIntosh County assessor never broke the law until she got caught up in the gambling habit, officials said. And a longtime bank employee in Cherokee County admitted gambling became her vice.

Jackie L. Borovetz of Muskogee, charged with 11 counts of embezzlement from the Muskogee County District Court Clerk’s Office, where she was a deputy clerk, suffered a gambling habit, prosecutors told a judge.

Borovetz is charged with diverting almost $600,000 from November 2007 through September 2008 into bank accounts she controlled. Yet, she didn’t have money to make bail at the end of September.

A judge ordered that if she should be able to post her $200,000 bond, a condition of her bail would be that she step into no gambling establishment. Borovetz remains in jail.