Ex-Alexandria official told to repay $201,000

An audit of Alexandria shows the extent of the thievery committed by the Licking County village’s former fiscal officer, Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said.

The audit covering 2014 and 2015, released Tuesday, orders Laura VanScoy Andrews to repay $201,153 to the village for checks she wrote to herself, money she stole from deposits and payments that lacked supporting documentation.

The former fiscal officer for the village of about 530 people is serving four years in prison, and ordered to pay restitution and court costs, after she pleaded no contest in November to third-degree felony charges of theft in office and tampering with records and a second-degree misdemeanor charge of dereliction of duty.

"I’m just so sorry," VanScoy Andrews, 50, of Utica, later told Licking County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Marcelain at her sentencing.

The newly released audit reported that VanScoy Andrews wrote herself 240 checks totaling $194,914 from 2009 through 2015. To conceal her theft, she disguised the checks as payments to vendors.

Bank records show that she stole an additional $3,399 in 2014 and 2015 by shorting deposits. In the same period, she wrote 11 checks worth $2,840 that lacked documentation needed to prove they served a proper purpose.

Auditors found no evidence that the village council monitored financial activity, and the village had no accounting policies in place at the time. The village government has since taken steps to strengthen its internal controls, according to the village’s response to the audit findings.

"This fiscal officer’s abuse of power was toxic to the Village of Alexandria," Yost said in a news release. "Her prison sentence is a welldeserved punishment for the seven years she spent ripping off the community."

Yost declared the village unauditable in 2016 after officials failed to supply complete records required for an audit. The release of the audit Tuesday removes that designation from the village.

Alexandria, located just north of Route 161 between New Albany and Newark, will remain a village after voters overwhelmingly voted May 8 against dissolving it. The dissolution issue failed by a vote of 204-17, with almost 59 percent of the community’s registered voters casting ballots, according to the Licking County Board of Elections.

Mayor Jim Jasper said after the vote that he hopes the people’s decision to keep their village means the community can move on from the difficult times.