A former clerk for the city of Anderson was sentenced this week to spend more than a year in prison for embezzling over $140,000 in a three-year period.
Trista Nichole Jennings, 37, pleaded guilty to first-degree theft in Fairbanks Superior Court on Tuesday as part of a plea agreement to dismiss charges including a scheme to defraud and issuing a bad check, according to Elizabeth Crail, a senior assistant district attorney in Fairbanks.
The mayor of Anderson, a small community of roughly 250 people in the Denali Borough, discovered the embezzlement in May and reported it to Alaska State Troopers, according to a sworn affidavit written by Trooper Christopher Nelson.
Jennings worked for the city for about five years and had sole control over funds in several city accounts, according to the affidavit. Mayor Samantha Thompson reported to troopers that Jennings had emptied all of the money from at least three accounts, it said.
Troopers found Jennings kept and concealed records from the city’s accounting firm as she shuffled money between accounts before depositing checks into her own account, the affidavit said.
Investigators searched Jennings’ home and found she’d recently purchased televisions, gaming systems and computers, the affidavit said. During an interview, she admitted to stealing the money and said she started to do so in 2020 “to get stuff on the house done,” Nelson wrote.
In total, prosecutors said she stole $141,859 from the city.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Superior Court Judge Kirk Schwalm sentenced Jennings to serve 18 months in prison on the first-degree theft charge, Crail said. Jennings was also ordered to repay the money she took from the city and will spend 10 years on probation, she said.
Jennings was in custody Thursday morning at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River.
Officials from the city were not available to comment on the case when reached by phone Wednesday.
Anderson is about 75 driving miles southwest of Fairbanks and was developed in the early 1960s during the construction of long-range radar systems at what’s now known as the Clear Space Force Station about 5 miles away.