It was announced on Friday by U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler of the Justice Department, that 48-year-old Margaret Ann Solomon, who worked as an Evidence Custodian for the North Slope Borough Police Department, has been sentenced to eight months in prison for Embezzling.

In addition, Solomon, who worked for the NSBPD from 2006 until 2012, will receive three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $109,623 in restitution to NSBPD.

According to court documents, Solomon began working with three others in the evidence room in Barrow. Attorneys stated in court that “Solomon knew which evidence items contained cash and, during the weeks that she was assigned to work in the evidence room, Solomon stole cash from evidence items.” It was revealed that Solomon would take money from evidence envelopes and remove the money from them, then sometimes, in order to cover up her crime, destroy the envelopes and files.[xyz-ihs snippet=”adsense-body-ad”]Solomon used the money that she embezzled, to gamble online. She deposited the money into her Well Fargo account, which was linked to Paypal, and later transfer those funds to her Facebook account.

Her crime was uncovered when auditors did an audit of the evidence room in 2014. The investigators found that over $207,563.96 was taken from the evidence room from 2011 until that time. Auditors also found that “82 individual evidence items were missing money or were unaccounted for altogether.” Auditors were unable to determine when items were taken from the evidence room or went missing.

Although almost twice as much cash as Solomon is ordered to pay back, lack of security in the evidence room was lax, and the room left unlocked and unattended on numerous occasions. The restitution amount was based on bank deposits of unaccounted-for cash in Solomon’s account during her time at NSBPD.

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Hattan.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

  barrow, borough, embezzling, evidence room, margaret solomon, North slope, prison, sentencing