Ex-County Worker Faces Embezzlement Charges
Accused embezzler Pat Achziger returned to Bonner County in shackles this week to face charges that she embezzled $48,000 from the county road department.
Achziger, a former employee of the department, made her first appearance in court Friday morning. First District Magistrate Debra Heise kept Achziger’s bail at $50,000 and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Oct. 21.
Achziger was arrested last month in Tucson, Ariz., after a private investigator hired by Bonner County commissioners tracked her down. Authorities returned her to Bonner County Thursday afternoon.
She is charged with 21 counts of grand theft by embezzlement that she allegedly carried out while working as a bookkeeper in the road department. She quit her job two years ago before the crime was discovered.
The county alleges that from 1992 to 1996, Achziger falsified accounts and records and cashed checks from the county made to her bogus business for products she never delivered.