Municipal Court Clerk Charged

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A former municipal court clerk in Billings has acknowledged stealing thousands of dollars from the city.

The Billings Gazette reports 55-year-old Carolyn Meyer Bishop pleaded guilty Tuesday to theft by embezzlement and is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Investigators say she took more than $10,000 from defendants paying fines to the court between April 2016 and March 2017. In each case, Bishop entered the payment into the clerk’s record keeping system but went back later and voided it. She then closed many of the cases.

A plea deal calls for five years of probation, $10,806 in restitution, a principles course and an apology letter to the city and to the court administrator, whose login Bishop used to void payments.

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Information from: The Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com