Mound woman took $200K from foundations, pleads guilty

A Mound woman accused of stealing nearly $200,000 from a college foundation and another organization has pleaded guilty to six counts of theft by swindle, the Hennepin County attorney's office said.

Alison Klug admitted to the theft of $181,500 from the North Hennepin Community College Foundation and $19,000 from Tonka Alano Society. Klug will be sentenced in July, and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said his office will ask that Klug be given 46 months in jail.

According to a criminal complaint, Klug started working with the college foundation in Brooklyn Park as bookkeeper through a temporary agency in 2014 and was an independent contractor with them. Concerns were raised after an annual review of the books conducted by an outside auditor in September 2016 found Klug had generated duplicate paychecks for herself and forged her supervisor's signature on the duplicates, according to the complaint.

Klug answered questions posed by the auditor but then left the office and never came back, the complaint said.

The complaint also states that a Brooklyn Park investigator obtained Klug's bank records and noticed that she made regular deposits with checks from the Tonka Alano Society between mid-September and Nov. 3. Klug was the lead treasurer, a volunteer position, for the organization. Society officials told the detective that Klug should not have received any money from the organization.

When a society member checked the organization's bank account, it had been drained to $5, the complaint said.

Klug was previously convicted of misdemeanor fifth-degree assault in 2007 and of misdemeanor harassment and stalking in 2008, court records show.

Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768