A former clerk for the McDonald County Prosecutor’s office will stand trial on felony stealing after allegedly faking cancer claims and accepting donations for treatment, a judge ruled this afternoon.
Tammy R. Young, 42, was bound over following a brief preliminary hearing this afternoon. Young, who had worked as a clerk in the prosecutor’s office from June 2008 until her dismissal in July of this year, was charged earlier this year with two counts of felony stealing following an investigation by the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department.
The sheriff, Robert Evenson, testified this afternoon that he initiated the investigation earlier this year after receiving reports that Young’s cancer claims were “all a continuing fraud” while she continued taking donations for her treatment. The hearing also featured testimony from one of Young’s former co-workers.
Yet Young’s defense attorney, Ross Rhoades, pointed out that Young had never asked anyone to mount fundraisers for her and that the state did not produce evidence showing either that she did not contract cancer or that she did not believe she was stricken with cancer.
“I think the crux of the case is whether she thought she had cancer,” Rhoades argued before Associate Judge John LePage.
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<img src=" http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/courts.gif" border=0> Former Prosecutor’s office clerk bound over for trial for allegedly faked cancer claims
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