Library board, township back convicted ex- clerk

When Madison County Municipal Court Judge Eric Schooley sentenced a former Mount Sterling village clerk Friday on a misdemeanor charge of falsifying records, he ordered that she cannot hold a position where she is in charge of any public funds while serving a year of probation.

That has proved to be a problem for Victoria “Vickie” Sheets. As a result, she resigned Monday as fiscal officer for the Mount Sterling Public Library, a part-time position she has held for nine years and that paid her about $10,000 annually.

Library board President Pat Baynes said Wednesday that the board didn’t really want to accept the resignation and that trustees would happily hire Sheets back whenever she is eligible again.

“Vickie is mildmannered, bright, community-minded and great at what she does,” Baynes said. “We’d known for some time an investigation was going on and we hoped it wouldn’t end this way.”

Sheets, however, has not resigned from the office she has held since 1991 as the elected fiscal clerk in Monroe Township in neighboring Pickaway County. Township trustees wrote a letter to the court in support of Sheets being permitted to stay on in her position, which was submitted by her defense attorney, Thomas Arrington, on Tuesday as part of a request to modify Sheets’ probation.

Court Clerk Tammy Terpening said the letter is not a public record because it is a probation document; the township trustees have not returned phone calls seeking comment and have not provided the letter themselves. Arrington also has not returned phone calls.

Sheets, 69, is only the latest to fall in what state officials say was the theft of more than $700,000 from the village over a severalyear period.

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost’s office investigated after irregularities were uncovered following the resignations in early 2016 of Village Administrator Joe Johnson, Mayor Charlie Neff and Sheets. Records show that after the trio resigned, some village computers, cellphones and tablets were missing, and Neff’s office computer had been erased.

Johnson was indicted in July on 30 counts accusing him of misusing village credit cards and stealing more than $720,000 from the village during his four-year tenure. He eventually pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering, theft in office, money laundering and tampering with records. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

State investigators have said that Sheets illegally backdated Johnson’s paperwork for the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System. That allowed him to drain his retirement account of more than $130,000 before the state could freeze it as part of its investigation. On Friday, she pleaded guilty to a single charge of falsification. In addition to her probation and its restrictions, Schooley suspended a jail sentence, ordered community service and levied a fine.

Baynes said that the library board never thought Sheets did anything wrong.

“She was so bullied,” baynes said, adding that Johnson “conned them all” in the village.