Former Broken Arrow church employee charged with embezzling nearly $245,000

A woman was charged Tuesday with embezzling nearly $245,000 from a Broken Arrow church to pay her credit card bills and purchase concert and theme park tickets, authorities said.

Candy Jean Tompkins, 47, faces five charges of embezzlement by employee for money taken from Arrow Heights Baptist Church, 3201 S. Elm Place, since 2008 when she was employed as payroll administrator, according to an affidavit.

After hiring a new company to take over payroll duties, the church’s pastor, Roger Taylor, discovered the alleged finance discrepancies, the document states.

Tompkins, who also uses the last name Butler, is accused of not withholding the agreed upon amount of insurance from her paycheck. The total amount is estimated to be $33,414.52 over the course of her employment, according to court documents.

Investigators believe Tompkins also charged approximately $100,282.00 to various employees’ company credit cards to purchase concert and theme park tickets, as well as for travel and purchases from Amazon.com.

Those cards were intended for buying church supplies, prosecutors said.

Tompkins allegedly also used church funds to pay two personal credit card debts, paying $75,548.47 on one card beginning in 2012 and $60,740.74 for another card.

For the first credit card, investigators said they chose to only search records back to 2012 because of the costs of getting that information from the bank.

Tompkins is also accused of taking $35,619.10 from funds she was supposed to deposit into the church’s bank account from tuition payments from parents whose children attend a ministry program, according to the affidavit.

Tompkins refused to speak with investigators when they initially approached her, authorities said.

When they reached out to her new employer, A-Best Roofing, officers discovered she’d been fired because of suspected embezzlement, investigators said.

She was charged with embezzlement in that case on Jan. 26, according to court records. She is accused of taking $6,133.68 from the business.

A district judge ordered a warrant for Tompkins’ arrest in relation to both cases. Online jail records indicate she has not yet been arrested.