A former Quad Cities bookkeeper has pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $800,000 from her employer to feed her gambling habit. Fifty-six-year-old Pamela Leichty of Rock Island, Illinois, was the accountant for the Quad City Garage Policy Group, which did upkeep on city buses. Davenport Alderman Ray Ambrose is also the group’s board chairman and he thinks the riverboat casinos should be liable. “I still feel the boats should be held responsible for the money this lady gambled away on the boat — the stolen money.” Leichty faces three-and-a-half years in prison and was ordered by a federal judge to repay the money, though Ambrose laments, it may be too late. “It’s a sad tragedy what we witnessed, the grip of gambling, what it can do to a family and to an individual and what it did to the taxpayers’ money.” The money vanished between the years 2000 and 2003. Garage Policy Group attorney John Callas says the probe is still ongoing as to how Leichty got away with the stealing of so much money for so long. An in-depth investigation is being conducted into various audits and a lawsuit may be filed soon. Callas says they’re trying to find out why the accounting firm the group used to employ failed to discover the missing money over several years.