MS Coast woman sentenced for embezzling thousands from city, one late fee at a time
A former city employee in Gautier will spend two years under house arrest for embezzling thousands of dollars as a customer representative for the city, court records show.
Alicia Shay Landaverde, 40, pleaded guilty in January to one count each of felony embezzlement and making false statements.
Judge Calvin Taylor sentenced Landaverde to a concurrent sentence of 10 years for embezzlement and five years for making false statements.
Taylor suspended the prison time and ordered Landaverde to serve two years to serve under house arrest. The remaining time will be served under post-release supervision.
In addition, the judge ordered Landaverde to pay fines totaling $1,000, the remaining restitution of $3,928 to the city of Gautier, plus $460 in interest and $1,000 for investigative costs.
Landaverde’s arrest came after an investigation by the state auditor’s office.
According to the investigators, Landaverde pocketed late fees on accounts due to the city instead of depositing the money into the city coffers.
Prosecutors said she voided out paperwork on the late payment fees and then pocketed that cash to hide what she was doing.
Landaverde was terminated after investigators discovered the theft. In all, Landaverde is accused of embezzling $8,514 between November 2021 and April 4, 2022.
District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath prosecuted the case.
“We will continue to investigate cases, from small thefts to the largest public fraud case in state history, to ensure taxpayer dollars are protected,” State Auditor Shad White said at the time of Landaverde’s arrest in August.
Landaverde is the second former Gautier city employee to plead guilty in an embezzlement case in January.
Former Gautier and Moss Point police officer Eric Eugene Maye pleaded guilty to two counts of embezzlement in an unrelated case in January.
Maye was fired from his position as a police officer in Gautier in 2019, when he used his city-issued gas card to fuel up his personal vehicles on 13 different occasions. The city did pursue criminal charges then, and Maye landed a second job in law enforcement, this time in Moss Point.
Maye didn’t face any criminal prosecution until new allegations of criminal wrongdoing surfaced against him in his new job as a Moss Point police officer in February 2022. In that case, Maye admitted stealing money from a man arrested on a drug charge in Moss Point on Feb. 26, 2022.
Maye avoided jail time for his crime as well. He is serving five years under house arrest and five-years under post-release supervision for his crimes.
This story was originally published January 16, 2024 at 12:17 PM.
