Farmington official: I took city funds

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) - City officials believe Farmington's leading tourism official could have stolen more than $200,000 from city-funded accounts, and police are searching for financial records from two of the city's more prominent events, Freedom Days and the Totah Festival.

Debbie Dusenbery resigned as executive director of the Farmington Convention and Visitors Bureau on Tuesday after police seized her computer and financial documents, the Farmington Daily Times reported (http://bit.ly/zKNeiR). She sent police emails admitting to siphoning city funds and gave them an accounting.

Dusenbery is suspected of stealing nearly one-third of the center's typical annual budget, which was approximately $700,000 in 2011. The money was used to pay for a MacBook computer, numerous extravagant trips for friends and family members to Miami, Las Vegas and the Cayman Islands, and to purchase a guided elk hunt for her boyfriend and another friend, according to police records obtained by the Daily Times.

"As I have told you multiple times, there is absolutely no excuse for what I have done," Dusenbery wrote in a Jan. 15 email obtained by the newspaper.

Dusenbery provided police with summaries of the money she claims was fraudulently taken and said it is approximately $100,000 but not more than $200,000. City officials are trying to confirm the amount they believe is actually missing.

City Manager Rob Mayes said he would contract an outside auditor to look into the finances of the center, and police were working with a forensic accountant.

Dusenbery's attorney, Victor Titus, said his client dropped off a check to police for more than $100,000 on Wednesday and is going to "step up and do what's right."

Convention center employees notified board members after they noticed questionable purchases and became suspicious when payees began to call regarding late payments. In addition to discovering receipts for the guided elk hunt trip, employees found an outstanding debt for $22,500 owed to the company that provided the fireworks display for Farmington's Fourth of July celebration.

Dusenbery was hired in 2004 as the executive director of the convention center and has been the chairwoman and account manager of the Freedom Days and a board member for the Totah Festival since then, a city spokeswoman said.

Dusenbery told police during several interviews that she used convention center funds to pay her personal credit cards and cover the costs of her mounting medical bills, according to police records. She claims to have cancer.

In a Jan. 13 email to police, she wrote: "I made a terrible mistake to cover both my mother's and my medical costs that overwhelmed me and continue to mount every month, and I felt I had nowhere to turn."

Employees interviewed by police said they were suspicious of the cancer claims. She told one worker the cancer was affecting her kidneys, to another it was her ovaries, and to yet another she said she suffered from leukemia.

Dusenbery also said she was undergoing chemotherapy, but co-workers said she did not seem to be exhibiting signs of treatments such as hair or loss, or nausea, according to the police reports.

Generally, "the comments Dusenbery made to different people did not seem to be consistent with what they generally knew of the illness," one detective wrote.

Charges are expected to be filed sometime next week.

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Information from: The Daily Times