After it was alleged that a former state probation agent had intercepted and pocketed $12,900 in reparation money intended for a crime victim, the agent is now being charged with a felony.
According to online court records, Thursday Booker, 39, of Milwaukee, who was employed by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, had an arrest warrant issued for him on Friday.
Booker faces charges of misbehavior in public office, forgery, money laundering, theft in a business setting involving $10,000 to $100,000, and unlawful use of personal identifying information or papers.
Collecting money from her probationers to cover court charges, supervision fees, and restitution payments was one of Booker’s responsibilities with the DOC.
A guy named RP in the complaint was one of her probationers; he wanted to give the victim of his crime further financial help even though he had no unpaid court fees or restitution order. With the understanding that Booker would provide them to the victim, he gave her money orders.
Instead, according to the police, she kept the money orders and used them between May 2022 and October 2023 to pay for her own costs.
It’s unclear from online court records if she is being represented by counsel. Booker left approximately two months ago, according to Beth Hardtke, the department of prisons’ director of communications.
A complaint dated May 16 states:
Early in 2021, Booker was tasked with overseeing RP; however, he was later reassigned to a different agency in November.
The individual provided the new agent a $500 money order on November 17 to give to his victim. What offense RP committed is unclear.
The new agent found that RP had no outstanding debts. As he had done for the previous year, he demanded that the victim get the money order. That led to a probe.
RP informed detectives in January that the woman who had been the victim of his crime had written him a letter in 2022 saying she had forgiven him. She continued by telling him about her life as it was at the moment.
According to the complaint, RP contacted Booker about money orders because he felt awful about what he had done and wanted to help his victim financially.
Booker’s probationer believed that if he offered Booker money, Booker would give it to the victim. After all, it was a procedure for making the restitution that the court had mandated.
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Over time, RP provided Booker many money orders, which she would pick up at his house.
According to the complaint, the victim informed investigators that she had never received any more funding from the Department of Corrections or been given any outside of the court-mandated restitution.
RP received a letter from his victim praising him for making complete restitution, according to program notes from the prison department from his visit on April 7, 2022.
On April 27, 2022, he sent her another note expressing his desire to give her additional financial support. Booker indicated in the note that doing so would be acceptable as long as RP didn’t get in touch with the victim.
With the exception of a $360 supervision payment on February 6, 2023, Booker did not record any more payments by RP after May of 2022, when the alleged embezzlement started, the complaint claims.
After May 23, 2023, Booker started documenting in her program notes that RP had a “credit” on his account and had paid all supervision costs and reparations.
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