(Radio Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand says an investigation by his office has found the former city clerk in a small eastern Iowa town improperly gave herself 63-thousand dollars in city funds — nearly 90 percent of it in the last month she worked for McCausland. “This is sort of a classic timeline for a financial deed misdoer,” Sand said. “You oftentimes see them start slowly and then gain speed in the rate at which they misspend money as they become more uncomfortable.”

Sheila Bosworth was hired in 2009 to work part time as city clerk for the town of just over 300 residents. On St. Patrick’s Day last year, Blackhawk Bank and Trust in the Quad Cities notified McCausland officials that Bosworth was using the mayor’s electronic signature to write herself checks on the town’s account. Bosworth was immediately placed on leave and resigned a month later.

“When she was asked about it by a Scott County Deputy Sheriff, she stated: ‘I made a mistake, but I’m paying it back,'” Sand said. “There was no evidence that we saw that she was repaying any of the money she admitted taking.” In addition to the 55-thousand dollars worth of checks Bosworth wrote herself during her final month as city clerk, Sand says auditors who reviewed five years’ worth of city transactions found Bosworth had written nearly five-thousand dollars worth of checks for cash.

“When she was asked about this, she also told the Scott County detective that this was all due to a failure in a cryptocurrency investment or a cryptocurrency scheme,” Sand said. “Some of these unsupported charges were to Bitdefender. She said that she was going to repay the city after getting funds from Bitcoin investments and that some of the checks that were cashed were deposited in Bitcoin ATMs.”

Auditors found that over just 25 days, Boswell had written herself 26 checks on the city’s account. On just one of those days, she wrote herself five checks worth 10-thousand dollars in total. The report indicates Boswell also used the city’s credit card to get cash advances from banks in Camanche, Clinton and Bettendorf.

The 25-page special investigation by the State Auditor’s Office has been forwarded to Scott County’s Sheriff and County Attorney as well as the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.