WASILLA -- Donna Turner, former owner of a much-loved Big Lake wedding business, was indicted last week by a Palmer grand jury on felony theft and fraud charges involving the Big Lake Chamber of Commerce.
Charging documents say Turner took roughly $40,000 from the relatively small chamber over a period of years, President Nancie Linley said Monday.
Turner spent about eight years affiliated with the chamber and was its treasurer, a position she left in October, Linley said. Chamber officials first noticed discrepancies between bank statements and computer accounting records that same month.
"As soon as we noticed a discrepancy in some of our records, we relinquished all of our documents and everything over to the authorities," she said.
The indictments, handed up Friday, charge Turner with first-degree theft as well as scheming to defraud and falsifying business records. The indictment references an "on or around" March 2012 date as the time the alleged crimes occurred.
Contacted by phone Monday, the 56-year-old Turner said little except to answer "no" when asked if she stole money from the chamber.
Asked why she would be accused of such a crime, she said, "I have no idea." Then she said she had to go and hung up.
The Palmer District Attorney's Office didn't return a call for more information in time for this story.
Turner operated the Donna's Corner store in Big Lake for 18 years -- it opened the year of the destructive Miller's Reach fire -- but closed her business in July. The store sold wedding dresses, tuxedos and various wedding accessories and gifts. Turner also did wedding planning.
Her Facebook posts at the time described her unsuccessful efforts to sell the turnkey operation for $50,000 on Craigslist.
The store was apparently closed for some time in October 2013 when Turner said she was sick.
Turner works as a senior mortgage loan originator at a company with branches in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Linley, at the chamber, said there was no indication Turner's affiliation with her employer had anything to do with the charges against her.
The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development also filed a civil lawsuit against Turner in August over her failure to pay the entirety of a $1,905 penalty for a 2010 finding that she let the workers' compensation coverage lapse at Donna's Corner. She still owes $938, court documents show.
The Big Lake chamber, representing the small but growing community and recreation destination some 60 miles from Anchorage, isn't a big operation. Its major fundraisers every year are a March ice-fishing derby and a fall fishing derby that starts this month.
The loss of $40,000 won't cause the chamber to cut back on its offerings, Linley said, but the theft prompted various improvements in the way the organization operates.
"We have taken a lot of actions to improve everything so this can't happen again, and we've already come out stronger because of it," she said.