Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1900 — Ex-Treasurer Sued For $90,000. [ARTICLE]

Ex-Treasurer Sued For $90,000.

As a result of the recent investigation of Marion county records, Sterling R. Holt, ex-treasurer of that county, has been sued for $90,000, fees alleged to have been wrongfully witheld from the county treasury, as shown by the experts’ report. The suit is brought by R. F. Stuart, as a taxpayer and on relation of the state. Mr. Stuart alleges in the complaint that as a taxpayer he has an interest common to all the taxpayers of the county in the money in the treasury, and that as there are too many such taxpayers for them to all join in the suit it is brought by him in their behalf. It is charged, among other items, that he collected and failed to turn j over to the county treasury $4,632 01 of delinquent tax collection fees; that he collected and failed to turn over $5,069,05, interest on $70,000 of Marion County time warrants; that he obtained unlawfully $27,737.34 interest on county funds loaned through the Board of Commissionets, which he has retained and refuses to pay over to the county; that, although mindful of the fee t alary laws of 1891 and 1895 governing his office, he refused to report specifieially to the county auditor, under oath, on the first Monday of December, March, June and September of each year, the amount of fees collected by him as treasurer during each tnree mouths, and refused to report the total amount collected by him during his entire term. Notwithstanding this violation of law, it is alleged, he was allowed unlawfully to draw his salary as treasurer in the suin of $24,000. This amount, it is claimed, is due the county, with accrued interest.