The former clerk of the Dawson County Superior Court was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison after she pleaded guilty to tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud.
Becky M. McCord, 62, of Dawsonville also was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay a $10,000 fine and $51,611 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for back taxes, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta.
McCord had pleaded guilty to the charges in June.
"I am so sorry for the pain, hurt and humiliation I caused the people around me," McCord told Senior U.S. District Judge William C. O'Kelley in Gainesville, according to the Gainesville Times.
The people, she said, "have the right to expect more from a public servant. I know I have failed."
McCord had served as Dawson's court clerk from 1993 to February 2010.
According to the charges and information presented in court, between 2006 and 2009, she wrote and signed checks totaling about $134,000 to herself from the Superior Court’s bank account. McCord cashed the checks at banks in Dawsonville and used the funds to pay a car loan, mortgage and other personal expenses.
She did not report the funds on her 2009 federal tax return, nor additional legitimate income of $24,630 that she received from collecting passport fees as part of her job. She also failed to report the income on a bankruptcy petition filed jointly with her spouse in December 2007 and amended several times through June 2009.
McCord was arrested in February 2010 after her niece, former Deputy Clerk of Court Donna Sheriff, was caught issuing checks to a contract worker from a bank account used for holding cash bonds.
Investigators audited the court clerk's accounts and found evidence that McCord also was improperly taking money.
Sheriff and the contract worker, Justin Disharoon, pleaded guilty to theft charges on June 8.
McCord also faces a state charge of theft by taking. That case is expected to be resolved Friday, when McCord is scheduled to enter a plea, the Gainesville Times reported.
-- Staff writer Andria Simmons contributed to this article.
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