Cassandra Beth Lavley, a dispatcher with the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office, was convicted Oct. 11 of embezzling from the Plumas County Sheriff’s Employee’s Association fund, a felony.
Lavley, 39, entered a plea of no contest to one count of felony embezzlement. A second embezzlement count and one count of fraudulent alteration of books, both felonies, were dismissed.
Plumas County Superior Court Judge Douglas M. Prouty ordered Lavley to return to court Nov. 22 for sentencing. She faces up to three years in state prison.
The embezzlement charge against Lavley stems from over $20,000 taken from the Plumas County Sheriff’s Employee’s Association’s general account. The second count, for embezzling from an account used to provide local kids with Christmas gifts, was dismissed but included in the $25,592.76 restitution Prouty ordered her to pay the employee association.
If she pays the restitution before the sentencing date, Lavley may receive a sentence of probation with up to 356 days in the county jail, said Plumas County District Attorney David Hollister.
All three charges against Lavley took place between Jan. 1, 2022, and Nov. 21, 2023, and involved her in her capacity as the secretary-treasurer of the Plumas County Sheriff’s Employee’s Association, according to the criminal complaint filed April 11 in Plumas County Superior Court. Lavley was placed on administrative leave Nov. 21, 2023.
Lavley used the association’s American Express credit card to pay for airfare to a statewide conference for sheriff’s employees, held in Anaheim in November 2023. She attended with Chandler Peay, a Plumas County sheriff’s deputy. Lavley also used the card to buy Disneyland tickets and “character breakfasts” for her family.
Peay investigated the payments after he noticed that Lavley’s expenses were far higher than his. He also found hotel charges at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas in March 2023 as well as at the Silver Legacy in Reno. All were charged to the employee association account; none of these charges were authorized as association expenses, according to the criminal complaint.
When confronted about the charges Nov. 20, 2023, Lavley claimed they were a mistake. She resigned as the employee association’s secretary/treasurer and wrote the association a check for $2,958.89 on Nov. 21, 2023.
Peay’s further investigation of the association’s finances found “unusual charges” to both the association’s main and needy children’s accounts. Among them were “a high volume” of debit transactions to accounts with Costco and Amazon. Those purchases included an Asus Chromebook laptop, Inofia queen mattress, two TVs, a faux cowhide rug and Sun Bum SPF 50 sunscreen, the complaint states.
Peay’s investigation also found over $2,000 in charges to Costco for items that included clothing, frozen fruit, beer, wine, liquor, flowers, melatonin and a rotisserie chicken. Some of these items were identified in social media postings of photographs taken in Lavley’s daughter’s residence in Chico, according to the complaint.
The third charge, felony falsification of corporate documents, allegedly involved Lavley miscategorizing some purchases in the employee association’s accounts. That charge was dismissed but included in the $25,592.76 restitution the judge ordered.
Editor’s note: This story was changed to reflect more accurate information. The Plumas Sun regrets the earlier inaccuracies.
