Clerk charged with burning down City Hall
Posted: November 22, 2015 - 4:00am

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The former city clerk for the small western Iowa city of Casey has been indicted on federal charges alleging she used city funds for personal use and burned down City Hall the night before state auditors were to arrive to investigate missing money, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dorothy Dillinger was indicted on five counts of mail fraud and one count of malicious use of fire, federal court records filed Tuesday in Des Moines show. She is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 30.

The records don't list an attorney for her, and Dillinger could not be reached Wednesday. She has moved to Prairie City, but has no apparent listed telephone number.

Dillinger served as the city clerk for 30 years in Casey, which is about 50 miles west of Des Moines.

From about 2009 through August 2014, Dillinger used the city's credit card to buy personal items valued at more than $54,000 from Walmart, Target, Victoria's Secret and Avon, the indictment said. She covered up the purchases by providing the city council a false list of bills and disbursements.

When auditors were due to investigate the clerk's office in 2014, Dillinger attempted to destroy the community building in Casey housing the city's office on Aug. 19 or Aug. 20, the indictment said.

Dillinger was fired after admitting in a written statement released eight days after the blaze that she told fire investigators she'd begun taking money as early as 2006.

Dillinger, who is now 60, apologized "for all the wrongs I have done and abusing your trust."

State auditors released a report this August saying they found improper and unsupported disbursements from city funds and utility payments that were never deposited into city accounts between July 2008 and October 2014. Because the fire destroyed records, auditors said they were unable to determine if anything improper happened before 2008. They estimated the city's loss from improper spending at $300,000.

"The past at least nine years, I have taken funds that were not mine to take," Dillinger wrote in 2014. "I have no excuse. I hope you will all forgive me, if you don't, I will understand."