Moore can avoid jail by paying audit bill within 30 days
A judge found Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore to be in contempt of court on Thursday, but she can avoid jail time by paying an outstanding $10,000 audit bill.
Moore has 30 days to pay the debt, but right now, there is only about $8,000 left in the township’s checking account, she said.
As a result, the township has called a special meeting for Wednesday in which it will try to borrow money from other parties.
“Right now, we don’t have enough to do payroll or to pay the bills,” Moore said.
The township owes the $10,000 to ECS Financial, which was hired to do an audit of the township’s books. Although trustees authorized the payment in November, Moore, on the advice of her attorney, never submitted the check.
“I apologize for delaying this audit,” Moore said. “Immediately following the ruling, I signed the forensic contract (that lets the audit begin), which is now in the hands of the auditor.”
Moore had been battling trustees in court over a $10,000 deposit owed to ECS Financial.
The trustees wanted an audit due to various inconsistencies and errors they said they found in financial records related to money available in the township’s funds, Trustee Barbara Murphy said.
“We don’t really trust what we have and what we don’t have,” Murphy said.
Moore’s refusal to pay the $10,000 bill meant she was in contempt of Judge Michael Caldwell’s original 2010 court order. That order ended a separate lawsuit between Moore and the trustees. It said, in part, that Moore could not withhold payment of the bills that the trustees told her to pay, Murphy said.
“Plaintiff Moore is hereby sentenced to serve 30 days in the McHenry County jail beginning March 14, 2013,” Caldwell wrote in his Thursday order. “Plaintiff Moore can purge herself of this contempt order and jail sentence by executing the township’s Nov. 8, 2012 contract with ECS Financial and cutting a check for $10,000 to ECS as provided for by the Township Board.”
The audit is scheduled to start within the next two weeks and could take up to four months.
The board and Moore are due in court again on March 14 for a status hearing.