Arkansas State Police should investigate a check endorsed by Monticello Mayor Zack Tucker that coincided with an invoice that appears be falsified, Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Deen said this week.
Deen and the Economic Development Fund of Monticello sent records Thursday to the state police and Arkansas Legislative Audit with accompanying letters Friday requesting investigations.
The check and invoice were a subject during a meeting Wednesday of the city's advertising and promotion commission. Nita McDaniel, executive director of the Economic Development Fund, told the commission, of which she is also secretary, that a $22,500 check written in April 2015 from the commission to the Economic Development Fund was accompanied by an invoice on the fund's letterhead that she said was not prepared by the organization or approved by the commission.
The invoice states that $22,500 would be paid to ETC Engineering of Little Rock for half of the work done on the specifications for the proposed city convention center that voters later rejected the sales tax for in December 2015. The invoice, Deen said, appears to have been signed by Tucker, who appears also to have signed and endorsed the check. A handwritten note on the invoice reads "From AP per Z Tucker."
The Economic Development Fund of Monticello, also known as the Monticello Economic Development Commission, is a nonprofit that contracts with the city.
The commission voted at Wednesday's meeting to draft a letter to the Legislative Audit to submit the matter for review.
Deen said Friday that the check was cashed but that who cashed it and where the funds ended up is something investigators will have to determine. He said based on his knowledge of the case, ETC Engineering did not work on the convention center specifications.
"That firm did not do any work on that project," Deen said.
A phone message left at ETC Engineering regarding the convention center project was not returned Friday, but an employee said the company has done work previously with the city.
McDaniel said Friday that she was not comfortable commenting on a matter that had been turned over to the Arkansas State Police and the Legislative Audit.
Tucker's attorney, Hani Hashem, said in a news release Friday that he and Tucker were cooperating with "the proper officials and agencies regarding the utilization of certain funds from the Monticello Advertising and Promotion Commission.
"There are no allegations of theft or that Mayor Tucker personally benefited from the expenditure of funds," Hashem said.
Hashem said he had advised Tucker not to make any comments. Tucker did not return a phone message left for him Friday afternoon by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Tucker, 27, was elected mayor in 2014 at the age of 25, the second-youngest mayor in the city's history. That year, he was named one of the 20 most influential Arkansans in their 20s by Arkansas Business.
In the past two months, Tucker has faced opposition from a group -- Monticello Citizens for Better Government -- attempting to collect enough signatures to hold a recall vote on his mayorship. Tucker is in the second year of his four-year term.
Metro on 08/20/2016