Update: MS Coast bookkeeper gets house arrest for embezzling thousands, despite lying to judge
A former secretary and bookkeeper at Stone County Soil and Conservation District was sentenced to house arrest on Thursday after she embezzled over $42,000 in taxpayer money.
Judge Larry Bourgeois sentenced Jennifer Felker Rikard, 41, to 15 years in custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with 12 of those years suspended and the remaining 3 to be served under house arrest. After her house arrest, she will have five years of post release supervision and seven years of non-reporting supervision.
Bourgeois also ordered Rikard to pay a $3,000 fine, as well as court costs and $300 to the crime victims compensation fund. This is on top of the $42,563 she also has to pay in restitution.
During the sentencing, the prosecution revealed that she had also written a bad check for $163.17. Judge Bourgeois ordered her to pay $163.17 to the worthless check division.
Lying to the judge
Rikard was originally set to be sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty on Oct. 2, but Judge Bourgeois sent Rikard to jail for a few days after he learned she lied about the severity of her medical problems that delayed her prosecution for embezzling thousands of dollars from taxpayers.
“So you lied to me,” Judge Larry Bourgeois said Monday before ordering bailiffs to take Jennifer Rikard into custody.
“You were placed under oath,” Bourgeois said. “I don’t take that lightly.”
The judge asked Rikard what she had to say for herself after Harrison County Assistant District Attorney Matthew Burell told the judge that prosecutors learned Rikard had been untruthful about her health issues when she pleaded guilty to felony embezzlement in October.
“I’m sorry,” said Rikard, her head down as she cried.
“See how you like sitting in jail,” Bourgeois fired back. “And ma’am, you know who you got to blame for it? Yourself. I tell people all the time I don’t send anybody to jail. You send yourself.”
Rikard did apologize to the judge and her family for her crimes.
“What about the good people of Stone County?” Bourgeois said. “You took their money. They gave you a job. You rewarded them for it by stealing their money.”
Rikard used a company debit card to steal $42,562.53. She used the money to pay for trips to the hair salon, to get manicures and pedicures, to pay for an expensive purse and more.
At her plea hearing in October, Rikard’s attorney, Rufus Alldredge, asked the judge to consider a possible sentence of home confinement with intense supervision for his client because of her ongoing health issues.
The attorney talked about how Rikard had undergone surgery on multiple occasions that resulted in subsequent delays in her case. He called them “very personal” and “very painful” health problems.
In some of her filings to delay her case, Rikard claimed she had multiple surgeries, including alleged “botched” surgeries that had to be redone. Other paperwork indicated she was under dietary and travel restrictions and strict orders to refrain from physical activity.
In another filing later on, asking for another delay, she indicated she had been taken by ambulance to a hospital for treatment and couldn’t be in court.
It’s unclear the extent to which Rikard lied about her health problems because prosecutors discussed the details during a conference with the judge.
Sentencing
During the sentencing on Thursday, Judge Bourgeois asked Rikard how she liked her few days in jail.
“I would not recommend it to anyone,” Rikard said.
When asked why she lied to the judge, Rikard said she was ‘terrified’ and worried about leaving her son, of whom she is an only parent.
“For the last year and a half I’ve lived in a constant state of shame, I’m extremely sorry to the victims. The damage I’ve done is insurmountable,” Rikard said during the sentencing.
Of the over $42,000 Rikard owed in restitution, she has already paid $25,300, which she received from her mother-in-law. During the sentencing she stated that she also cashed out $9,600 from her state retirement fund to put toward the restitution.
Rikard, who is now a resident of Duckhill, Mississippi, said she plans on working for a cleaning company and running a side business hand making goods out of her home to pay the $350 per month she must pay until the restitution is paid off as well as costs related to house arrest.
As part of her sentencing, Rikard must commit no further crimes, have no weapons or firearms, test negative for drugs and alcohol, and cannot leave the state without permission. If she violates those terms, she could end up serving her sentence in prison.
“Come in and lie to me again and it’s not going to be house arrest,” Judge Bourgeois said.
