Des Moines police clerk charge with theft

A woman who worked in the Des Moines police department has been charged in connection with more than 20-thousand dollars in missing money. 50-year-old Carol Lawman was not a police officer. Polk County Attorney John Sarcone says the Des Moines woman was a records clerk and police information typist who’d worked in the capitol city police department since 1994. Des Moines police quietly began an internal investigation back in March when Lawman’s reports didn’t jive with money collected for various fines and fees. A public-accounting firm hired to go through the books reported more than 21-thousand dollars cash was missing, from November 1999 to March of this year. The woman’s charged with first-degree theft, a Class “C” felony.