The former treasurer of the Charity Angels AMBUCS, Crystal Bickford, 33, was booked into the Kay County Detention Center on a probable cause warrant late Monday and released on a $25,000 OR bond Tuesday.
An initial hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Oct. 7 in Kay County District Court.
Bickford faces 69 counts of embezzlement from the organization. She was arrested at 9:25 a.m. Monday at the University Center in Ponca City.
In an affidavit filed in the Kay County District Court on Tuesday, Donna Hingtgen, the current treasurer for the organization following Bickford's term, said she noticed that there was a large portion of money missing from the organization's bank account and Bickford was reporting more money in the account than was actually there.
Bickford had reported to the organization that there was $8,854.14 in the account, when the actual balance was $1,970.43, a difference of $6883.71, Hingtgen said in the affidavit.
Unauthorized charges to the account included $3,422 spent on finance/loan companies; $2,790 in ATM withdrawal, $457.74 in hotels, $181 in phone bill payments; $128.66 in insurance payments; $158.66 for fuel purchases; $132.03 charged at a local pharmacy; $457.05 in miscellaneous charges, and $750 in money transfers, the affidavit stated. All of these were believed to be personal transactions not related to the AMBUCS organization.
Karly Fagg, President of the Charity Angels, stated in the affidavit that Bickford was the only member who had the organization's debit card in her possession and all spending and purchasing went through her.
Ponca City Patrol Officer Jenny White stated in the affidavit that Hingtgen provided bank statements from the organization's account which highlighted the charges which were not authorized. White said Bickford wrote to the board admitting to the misappropriation of funds from the organization.
In the letter, Bickford stated she was treasurer of the Charity Angels from June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2016. She admitted the loan company payments were for personal loans she made payments on with the organization's account. She wrote the hotel charges were possibly personal charges and she had used the card to withdraw money from an ATM for personal use.
Bickford wrote that she did not know how much money she may have used from the account for personal use, but she had intended on paying it back.
Bickford said she has made a partial payment of $1,500 and her parents had planned to offer to repay the rest at a meeting with the organization.
Judge David Bandy signed the probable cause warrant at 1:12 p.m. Tuesday.
