A Pottsville woman faces charges of forgery, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, and access device fraud for embezzling $449,064 from the Schuylkill Conservation District over seven years.

Virginia Kunigonis, 53, admitted to state Trooper Bernard J. Walasavage of the Schuylkill Haven barracks that she had taken the money to take trips and pay credit card bills.Kunigonis had a preliminary arraignment at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday before District Judge James Ferrier of Orwigsburg.She was released on $100,000 unsecured bail.The Conservation District is funded by state and federal grant money, and by the county.Kunigonis told police she used money from the grant accounts and not money from the county because she would have been more easily caught.County Controller Christy D. Joy in June became aware of problems after examining the agency's 2012 financial records, prompting state police at Schuylkill Haven to launch an investigation.The embezzlement surfaced as district employees were looking for information for an audit.According to an affidavit of probable cause, they discovered two manila envelopes under Kunigonis' desk.The envelopes contained information that revealed what Kunigonis was doing.Hinkel was in charge of making payments to various companies for conservation work in the county.Beginning in 2010, she began to generate various checks to pay companies.She would generate the checks in her name, or made several to Card Member Services, a credit card held by her husband.She would sign Conservation District Manager Elizabeth Hinkel's name or agency Chairman Stanley Fidler's, and then cash the checks from the Conservation District bank account.She would then make a duplicate check to pay the company, but that money would be deducted from the county account held by the agency.Kunigonis would then receive the canceled checks written to herself, and create a Word document listing a company as being paid.She would then paste this over the original check made payable to herself or Card Member Services, to make it appear that the checks were proper and documented without her name being attached.When looking at the bank records for the district account, the checks would be shown written to the company the money was intended for, but that had been paid through the separate county account.A check of the district account showed the checks had actually been written to Kunigonis.A forensic audit was done in June by Robert Ribic of SF& Compny CPA and Business Advisors.The audit showed Kunigonis began taking the money in September 2007 and continued to May 2014.She wrote $407,312 in unauthorized checks, forging the names of Conservation District employees.Kunigonis forged the names of Conservation District employees Elizabeth Hinkel, Stanley Fidler, Craig Morgan, Glenn Lukenbill, and Paul Lohin, state police say.Kunigonis also used the Conservation District’s credit card for an additional $41,751 in personal expenditures, according to the affidavit.It was not initially clear how much money may have been taken due to what Joy termed irregularities in the agency's accounting practices.According to the audit, the problems stemmed from not having the district manager's required signed approvals on payments, which may indicate misappropriation of funds; an inability to completely segregate all duties, due to too few employees; and failure to record transactions in a timely manner.Hinkel at the time said her agency was correcting the shortcomings by upgrading its record keeping practices and making sure any spending is approved in writing.But it cannot afford to hire more staff in order to segregate duties.In a prepared statement in June, Hinkel said she and a staff member were doing a routine review of files on May 30 when the staff member "found what appeared to be file folders documenting fraudulent activity, which was first flagged when the staff person noticed what appeared to be fraudulent signatures.This information, as well as bank statements and canceled checks, were reviewed by the district manager, who contacted the county administrator that afternoon, per the financial policy."Hinkel met with county officials on June 2, and state police were called in that day.She said she was asked by Joy on June 4 for the 2012 audit, which she provided on June 5.