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La-Tonya Chisolm, 35, of Hilton Head Island, was sentenced to five years in state prison, but she probably will serve only 18 months. She will then be on probation for five years. She also has to pay the town $4,640 in restitution, the amount she was convicted of stealing.
On June 19, 2006, police converged on Bluffton's Town Hall when Chisolm, who appeared shaken, yelled that she had just been robbed by an armed man in a suit.
No one other than Chisolm saw the man, who would have had to walk down 70 feet of hallway and past a receptionist's office to rob the clerk. The robber would have had to go back down that hallway to escape. A Bluffton police officer 200 or 300 yards away didn't see anyone matching the description Chisolm gave of the man.
Chisolm provided a detailed description of the robber. She said he had the face of a drinker and the breath of a smoker, that he wore a ring and had a tattoo.
Every Bluffton police officer was called to duty, but the search was fruitless.
CAUGHT IN A LIE
In the end, the victim of the crime began to look more like the culprit.
Police say details of Chisolm's story kept changing, and she failed a polygraph test.
She was placed on paid administrative leave and later resigned, accepting a $24,000 severance package from the town.
The case was then handed over to the State Law Enforcement Division, and later to an outside prosecutor, the state Attorney General's Office.
Investigators dove into Chisolm's life, subpoenaing bank records and bills that showed the former court clerk was in debt, overdrawn on bank accounts and paying hundreds of dollars in bank fees each month.
On the night after the robbery, Chisolm deposited $500 cash into her bank account. The following day, she paid $500 to book a cruise.
In 2007, a state grand jury indicted her on charges of misconduct in public office and embezzling under $5,000, which carry up to 15 years of prison.
"On June 19, 2006, La-Tonya Chisolm counted on the police not catching on to her lies," prosecutor Alan Wilson told the jury of eight women and four men Wednesday. "And now she is counting on you not to catch on to them."
It took the jury about two and a half hours to convict her after two days of testimony in which Chisolm showed what prosecutors called a "performance" of anger, defiance, joy and tears.
Her attorney, Mike Macloskie, asked Judge Perry M. Buckner III for probation. Prosecutors deferred to Buckner, who said he had to balance Chisolm's lack of a criminal record with the public's loss of trust.
"I can't speak," Chisolm told the judge in a faint voice before Buckner handed down the sentence.
Chisolm, who has a 6-year-old son, could be heard sobbing and yelling behind a closed door as she was being led to the county jail.
"She has worked hard all her life," Macloskie said during sentencing. "This event marks an aberration in the that life. La-Tonya possesses not only a strength in character, but also a deep faith in God. She will overcome this in the truest sense of the word."
TOWN HALL RESPONDS
The crime occurred at a time when Bluffton, which had grown tremendously in size, still had many small-town inefficiencies -- particularly when it came to keeping financial records.
Ex-court clerk Bertha Mitchell had pleaded guilty to siphoning $90,000 in court fines from the town between 1999 and 2001.
Chisolm replaced Mitchell, who received no prison time.
Chisolm's crime led the town to implement stricter bookkeeping rules and tighter security.
The days of the public freely wandering the halls of Town Hall came to an abrupt end with a $55,000 security clampdown. Officials installed bullet-proof glass, cameras, door buzzers and panic buttons.
Better financial oversight now exists, town officials say. The books are balanced each day. Cash isn't stored overnight.
The Police Department is poised to become nationally accredited early next year, just two years after Police Chief David McAllister was hired to bring the department up to modern standards. When he started in 2006, the department barely had the supplies necessary to conduct a professional investigation.
"I think it marks Bluffton turning a corner," McAllister said after news of the verdict, "an ushering in of ethical government and an era of high standards."
