Embezzling $500,000 brings four-year prison sentence for Spring Lake finance director

The former finance director for the small town of Spring Lake will serve four years in prison for embezzling more than $500,000 during her tenure.

Gay Cameron Tucker, 64, received two consecutive 24-month sentences in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, following her guilty plea in September.

Tucker managed the troubled Cumberland County town’s funds between 2016 and 2021, writing checks to herself from the town’s accounts and forging official signatures, including the mayor’s, said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley.

Over that time, the checks totaled $567,070.

“Public corruption at any level is a crime that affects all of us and undermines our public institutions,” Easley said in a Wednesday news release. “This defendant abused her position of trust by using public funds intended for her local community to pay her own personal expenses.”

A town’s money problems

Tucker’s sentence stems from an investigation from State Auditor Beth Wood, a Democrat, and Treasurer Dale Folwell, a Republican, who spent months digging into potential corruption and waste. Located in on the edge of Fort Bragg, just outside Fayetteville, Spring Lake’s 12,000 residents include many current and retired soldiers.

At the time, the town about 50 miles south of Raleigh was already mired in money problems. It was found by state officials in a 2016 audit to have spent nearly $500,000 on purchases that were either questionable or in violation of its own policies.

In 2020, the town board voted 3-2 to give put Tucker in charge of Spring Lake’s finances and pay her a $71,000 salary, promoting her from an accounting technician, according to minutes from town aldermen meetings.

Hired without background checks

Spring Lake hired Tucker as finance director without conducting interviews or looking at a resume, though her background included multiple bankruptcies, tax liens, unpaid credit card bills and failed businesses, The News & Observer has learned.

Tucker and her husband were suffering their own considerable money problems, including bankruptcy, court records show.

As Tucker rose in town management to become the finance director, she began abusing her authority to quietly pocket $430,000 in town money, according to the state audit released early this year.

A quarter of the money she took paid for her husband’s expenses at a senior living center, reported in the bankruptcy filing to be more than $2,000 a month. Tucker wrote 13 checks for $113,015 from the town’s account to Heritage Place Senior Living, according to the 2022 audit. She wrote 72 checks in all for “personal use.”