Dallas County Sheriff's employee pleads guilty to stealing $250K from jail commissary
Jun. 18—A Dallas County Sheriff's Office supervisor who embezzled more than $250,000 from the jail's inmate property fund pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal offense, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Umeka Treymane Myers, 49, was charged via criminal information on April 28. On Thursday, she pleaded guilty to theft from a program receiving federal funds.
According to plea papers, Ms. Myers worked as a supervisor at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center's inmate property vault, which refunds inmates' commissary account balances upon their release.
When an inmate's account contains more than $30, property vault employees give them the balance on debit cards generated by software from the Keef Group.
If an employee makes an error processing a debit card, the software generates an error message, which only a lead clerk or supervisor (such as Myers), can clear.
After overriding a debit card error, however, Ms. Myers used released inmates' book-in numbers to create new and duplicate debit cards, then entered the same amount from the card issued to the released inmate on to the newly created card.
Between 2018 and 2021, she fraudulently issued dozens of debit cards, which she used in Texas, Louisiana, Nevada, Maryland, and New York. (Her spending was confirmed by Winstar, Choctaw, and Margaritaville casino records, Southwest Airlines records, Bank of America ATM surveillance footage, and personal bank records.)
Ms. Myers now faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation with the full cooperation of the Dallas County Sheriff's Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcus Busch is prosecuting the case.
