KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal grand jury has indicted two former Wyandotte County District Court bookkeepers in connection with an alleged scheme to steal $900,000 from the court.
Julia Roberts, 65, of Kansas City, Kansas, and Vicki Robinson, 63, of Bonner Springs, were each charged with one count of fire fraud conspiracy and various counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The pair made their initial court appearances this week before a federal judge.
Court documents filed in support of the indictment allege the pair operated the scheme between January 2018 and February 2023.
Investigators allege the pair would use the clerk of the court’s signature to generate fraudulent checks.
The checks would then be drawn upon from the district court’s bank account and fraudulently deposited at the Bank of Labor.
Roberts had been employed as a bookkeeper with the court since February 1997. Robinson joined the court as a bookkeeper in September 2020.
Investigators estimate more than 400 checks, ranging in amounts from $189 to $10,000, were part of the scheme.
Their alleged scheme was first detected two years when Kansas Court officials started the process of transitioning the Wyandotte County District Court to a centralized case management and payment processing system.
"We uncovered questionable activity involving court funds," Kansas Courts spokesperson Lisa Taylor said in an e-mail Friday to KSHB 41 News.
Taylor said the court hired an independent accountant to review the court records. The accountant found discrepancies that could have been from criminal acts.
Taylor said the court alerted the FBI, which launched a criminal investigation.
"When the court transitioned to the statewide case management system, the central payment center in the Office of Judicial Administration took over responsibility for outgoing court payments," Taylor said. "Centralizing payment processing gives us important financial safeguards and accounting controls over payments made to and from courts."
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