RIVERTON — Originally charged with stealing more than $34,000 from the Town of Pavillion, the municipality’s former clerk was charged again last week, after more unexplained expenditures were discovered.
The newly discovered bank account charges date back to 2013 and appear to have funded a wedding in Kentucky.
Rebecca Irene Milleson, a 48-year-old Riverton woman also known as Rebecca Hatcher, now faces an additional count of felony larceny. The charge in worst-case scenarios could be punishable by up to a decade in prison and $10,000 in fines.
According to court documents, weeks before she was first arrested in February of this year, Milleson already had made restitution of the $34,399.
She posted bond and was released promptly in February, and has again posted bond and been released.
The Fremont County Attorney’s office did not comment on whether Milleson has paid restitution on the new case.
On March 23, about a month after Milleson’s arrest, Matt Pattison called Fremont County Sheriff’s Office detective Eric Granlund, to inform him that Pavillion Mayor Charles Snyder had resigned and that he, Pattison, had been appointed to the position.
Pattison told the detective he wanted to investigate the town’s financial records to make sure no other town funds were missing or misused by Milleson.
Six days later, Pattison met with Granlund and told him the town’s bank account had only been open since September of 2018. Before its opening, Pavillion held a different bank account at First Interstate in Riverton.
Pattison and the town had been told, and town meeting records had conveyed, that the First Interstate account was closed on Sept. 10, 2018.
But Pattison learned that the account was not actually closed until 2020.
A credit card linked to the old account which had been issued to Milleson was active until February of 2021, the month of her initial arrest.
“There were hundreds of charges made on the credit card,” Granlund wrote.
He listed nearly $4,000 in expenditures, distributed to Kentucky businesses whose nature “were of the type one would have when paying for a wedding.”
Some of the charges ran as follows: $300 to Meredith Saunders, photographer, May 7, 2013; $450 to Echoes Sound and light, DJ service, May 13, 2013; $735 to Meredith Saunders, photographer, May 17, 2013; $500 to Julianne’s Florist, May 20, 2013; $950.15 to Kay Jewelers, June 4, 2013; $387.84 to Hobby Lobby, June 5, 2013; $186 to Regal nails, June 6, 2013, and $178.08 to Bluegrass Bridal and Tuxedo, June 7, 2013.
“These charges alone,” court documents state, “totaled $3,686.99.”
“All of the above charges ultimately were paid off via the Town of Pavillion bank account.”
Granlund also noted that Milleson is known to have significant family ties to Kentucky.
The case filed in February related to 11 checks made payable to Milleson over the past year. Granlund was told nine of those checks were deposited through a phone application electronically, but then taken physically to a different bank and cashed.
However, two of the checks were deposited and/or cashed three times apiece, court documents state. The payouts occurred between Aug. 4, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021, totaling $34,399.67.
The detective spoke with Pavillion town officials and learned that Milleson had confessed the fraud to then-Pavillion Mayor Charles Snyder, and had volunteered to pay back the money.
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