CASPER, Wyo. — The former bookkeeper for a Casper-based plumbing company has been charged with overpaying herself at least $120,000 over three years between 2019 and 2021.
Terra Nevins, 32, was charged with obtaining goods by false pretenses, grand theft, and forgery in Natrona County Circuit Court on Tuesday, Dec. 13. Bond was set at $20,000 cash or surety, though the state had asked for a $50,000 bond.
Nevins is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The company’s owner told investigators he had stopped reviewing payroll after switching to direct deposit in late 2019, according to the affidavit. Nevins had been hired as an accountant in 2018. He said he only began checking the bottom payroll number, which usually seemed correct to him.
The owner began reviewing paystubs while Nevins was on vacation in September 2021, the affidavit says. He noticed that Nevins’s weekly paycheck on Dec. 6 was about $2,889. A salaried employee, Nevins should have received $1,805, the owner said. There was also a check issued to Nevins on Dec. 9 for about $2,800.
The owner calculated that Nevins had overpaid herself $11,628 in 2019, $44,310 in 2020, and $60,793 in the first nine months of 2021. He said he spent the following week double-checking his findings and reviewing them with his personal accountant. He fired Nevins on Sept. 30, 2021, the affidavit said.
The detective’s affidavit includes an exhaustive review of the company’s payroll, which the owner says Nevins was exclusively responsible for. The detective found checks consistently reflecting a higher pay rate as well as instances of two paychecks being issued within days of each other or on the same day, the affidavit said.
The detective noted a check issued to Nevins on Sept. 2 that was for $5,998.82 in both office and vacation pay.
The execution of a search warrant on Nevins’s joint bank accounts also revealed 15 checks issued to either herself or her husband on behalf of the plumbing company, according to the affidavit.
The owner said he had only authorized two of these, including one to Nevins’s husband for one-time labor. He said some of the checks had likely been pre-signed, a practice that allowed employees to make purchases when he was unavailable. He said three of the checks had been forged, according to the affidavit.
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