Leah Rae Mulholland, 40, Webster City, was charged with ongoing criminal conduct, theft in the first degree, unauthorized use of a credit card and forgery. Mulholland is being held at the Hamilton County jail on $50,000 bond.

On June 25, 2018, the Webster City Police Department requested the assistance of the Division of Criminal Investigations on a financial investigation involving the Webster City Chamber of Commerce and the former administrative assistant, Mulholland. The office of the Auditor of State conducted an audit for the period of Oct. 1, 2013 through June 30, 2018. The audit report was released July 3, 2019.

The audit found 367 checks issued to Mulholland totaling $236,313.03. Of those checks,139 were payroll check; four were bonuses and two were reimbursements. Two-hundred twenty-two were unauthorized checks ranging from $20 to $2,000.

The audit also found that Mulholland had garnishments that should have come out of her payroll check, but instead came out of the Chamber account on seven dates.

Auditors also found 846 debit card transactions with only 107 that were properly supported by chamber records.

Other examples from the audit using the debit card included:

• Twenty-one payments to cell phone providers, totaling $3,507.82. The Chamber did not issue cell phones to employees and it was not the policy of the Chamber to pay for employees’ personal cell phone bills.

• Eleven payments that didn’t correspond with any business purchases to various hotels totaling $2,719.72.

• Payment to a credit card company for $1,513.20. “Because the chamber did not have a credit card, we determined the payment was for a personal credit card,” the audit stated.

• Thirty payments to various Webster City restaurants, totaling $699.29 that didn’t appear to correspond with any business purpose, according to the audit.

• Five payments to inmate telephone services totaling $216.20.