Parker Live News from the Parker Strip since 2009.
A woman who pleaded guilty to multiple counts of defrauding the Bouse Elementary School District has been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison at the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Jacque Nelson, who prosecutors said wrote herself checks from District funds, entered into a plea agreement with the La Paz County Attorney’s Office, with the maximum available prison term and 7 years of ‘white collar’ probation on a separate charge.
Nelson has also given the court $43,000 toward restitution to the District, a sum that came from loans, savings and employment, according to Nelson.
George Nault, president of the Bouse School District Board, says the District lost $68,000 including fees for full forensic auditing. “She robbed every child in the school,” he said.
‘White collar’ probation is a unique type of probation, according to La Paz County Attorney Tony Rogers, relating specifically to charges like financial fraud.
Rogers says the penalty for failing this form of probation is up to 5 years more in prison.
Should be longer!!!
Nicely done la Paz county
Always good to see people who prey on others brought to justice
Agree should be IMO … But I ain’t a judge, a lawyer, or even the jury
Where is the rest of this story??? The court was in session for 5 HOURS! A dozen or so people stood up and told the Judge how Jacque had been taking advantage of unsuspecting people for over 10 years! Jacque Nelson says she has learned a valuable lesson and wants to become a “new person” after she serves her time in prison. Unfortunately, even after she had been arrested back in May of 2013 she was still scamming people, including me and my wife just 5 months later and while out of jail awaiting her trial.
Jacque did make a smart deal with her plea bargain, 1.5 years is a REAL BARGIN. I’m sure that if the people that spoke out in court against her on Friday January 9, 2015 would have testified in an actual trial she would have gotten a much stiffer sentence. The judge gave her the maximum amount of time that he could, based on the plea bargain that had already been agreed to.
We do feel sorry for Jacque, she was a very likable person and many people trusted her, however, their trust was used against them and Jacque took advantage of us too. My wife and I do forgive Jacque for what she did to us; however, we will not trust other people as easily as we trusted Jacque in the future (which is a sad commentary on our society).
Our prayer is that Jacque continues to get the help and counseling for her problems that she needs. We hope that the police will keep an eye on her when she has completed serving her time. That way others won’t be taken advantage of as we and so many others were, ever again. We’ve learned our lesson, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”!
Kirk and Mary Wilson
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