WALDRON (KFSM) — A former Waldron City Council member was arrested Tuesday (Feb. 19) on theft charges after police say she embezzled money from residents at a local assisted living facility.
Waldron Police said Paige Cupit was arrested on Tuesday (Feb. 19) on four counts of misdemeanor theft of property. She resigned from the City Council on Feb. 6.
An arrest report dated Jan. 25, 2019, states that Waldron Police Detective Horacio Gonzalez was called to Dalton's Place Assisted Living in regard to reports that the office manager there — identified as Paige Cupit — "had been taking money from 4 residents' trust funds for her personal use."
The report states that the center's administrator wanted to check a trust fund to ensure it would balance, when Cupit told the administrator the fund wouldn't balance because Cupit was having "financial problems" and had been taking money from residents' trust funds.
An audit was performed on the four trust funds from which Cupit was suspected of taking money, the report said. The audit found a total of $702 was missing from the four trust funds. Cupit and her husband brought in money to repay the accounts, but the administration decided to return the money to the Cupits, the report states.
Cupit was interviewed by police and told them she started taking money from trust funds in August 2018 but had been paying the money back. She told police "that she was planning to put the money back into these 4 victim's Trust Funds, when she got paid."
Cupit told police that she had taken a total of $1,260 from the four accounts and was planning to pay them back. She said that she had "made a mistake" and had every intention of paying the money back, the report states.
Cupit resigned Feb. 6 from Position II of Ward III of the Waldron City Council. In her resignation letter to Mayor David Millard and the members of the city council, Cupit said she was resigning to help her ailing grandmother and Cupit's family to move. The move, Cupit said, "is not only outside my ward, but outside the City limits."
"My resignation will be effective immediately," the letter states. Cupit makes no mention of the money issues or police interview in her resignation letter.
Cupit was released from the Scott County Detention Center Tuesday night on her own recognizance, according to the Scott County Sheriff's Office.
Cupit's resignation letter is available here.