Accused PB woman: Couldn't fight urges

She says disorder made her steal money

— A Pine Bluff woman accused of embezzling more than $20,000 from Special Olympics Arkansas claims she used some of the money to buy more than 100 cooking pots as part of an uncontrollable compulsion to spend money, according to a psychological report presented Tuesday to a Pulaski County Circuit judge.

"I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't tell myself to stop," 36-year-old Angela Maria Jones told a state psychologist, according to the report. "It was like a battle inside of me. I felt bad for doing it and would be sad for doing it. I don't understand howa person can't have control of their impulses."

Doctors at the Arkansas State Hospital have diagnosed Jones with bipolar disorder, combined with dependence on drugs and alcohol, but have found her fit to stand trial, according to the report presented to Judge John Langston on Tuesday.

Jones' attorney, Robert Morehead, said the defense will hire its own expert to review the findings by Dr. Charles Mallory, with a hearing set for Dec. 13.

Jones is charged with seconddegree forgery, accused of cashing 11 checks, totaling $20,640, between Feb. 5 and March 9 on the account of Special Olympicswhere she worked for about a year as a bookkeeper, making $42,000 a year. According to the group's 2006 federal tax filing, the most recent available, it collected about $1.3 million in revenue, while spending $1.1 million.

Jones admitted the thefts to Mallory, according to the report, saying she bought the pots for herself and also purchased things for her friends while in the grip of her compulsion.

"I bought about 100 to 150 stock pots, all kinds, and I had them in my apartment's storage room. I thought I would use them some day," she told the psychologist, according to the report. "I had reunited with old drinking buddies and was buying stuff for them. I hate it when people need stuff and I can't help wanting to help them, and people take advantage of that."

Jones described for doctors how she wrote checks and charged them to vendors, but put her own name on the checks. She said she always thought she would comeup with the funds to pay back the money.

"I always thought that God would make me have the money," she said.

In diagnosing her competent tostand trial, the psychologist found that her bipolar disorder did influence her to buy unnecessary items for herself and expensive things for her friends.

But Mallory considered it unlikely that the disorder would have affected her so completely for so long.

"While she had symptoms of mental disease ... her mental condition did not prevent her from presenting herself as law-abiding, presumably sober enough to pass many checks at retail establishments, where she would have had to present ID and a sober responsible manner," Mallory wrote.

He found it significant that she had used some of the hot checks to pay off fines and fees she owed the court for previous hot-check charges. Prosecutors have evidence that Jones used at least two Social Security numbers, fake addresses and phone numbers, an indicator that she knew right from wrong, Mallory noted.

According to court files, Jones has two felony forgery convictions and nine convictions for hot checks, with six of those felony convictions.

Her convictions in Pulaski County include:

July 2007, two counts of Class C forgery for writing two temporary checks belonging to the Little Rock Housing Authority on July 19, 2006, and July 26, 2006. Pleadedguilty in exchange for a sentence of three years probation, a $300 fine and $3,100 in restitution.

February 2005, two counts of Class C hot checks for 40 checks she wrote between August 2003 and January 2004. Pleaded guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping eight misdemeanor counts. Accepted a sentence of five years probation, $500 fine and $5,103 in restitution.

January 2002, two hot check charges, a Class B and Class C felony, representing 54 checks written between June 2002 and December 2002. Pleaded guilty in exchange for five years on probation, $250 fine and $11,942 in restitution.

Arkansas, Pages 11, 17 on 10/24/2007

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