By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Multiple fraudulent checks were caught and safeguards were put in place before a state audit was released, according to Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd.
“The state audit did not find the fraudulent checks,” said Deputy Judge-Executive Garland Gilliam, who was also in a Thursday morning interview with Glasgow News 1. “We had already found, and taken care of them, but [the state auditors] had to report that that happened, so their report showed that.”
“We’d already found those…in the previous year before the [state] auditors were even here,” Byrd added.
There were 14 fraudulent checks that were written between May 22, 2023, and February 19, 2024, by a Mississippi man, on a county South Central Bank account. The state audit report for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2024, listed 13 findings, some of which related to fraudulent checks.
Byrd told Glasgow News 1 during an April 2 interview that three of the fraudulent checks were found by an independent auditor in covering fiscal year July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023. That triggered a review of the checks that found the remaining 11 later mentioned in the state audit. The state audit is conducted every four years, but the county contracts for an independent audit each year.
To ensure that fraudulent checks “never happen again,” the county has gone to digital time cards, began utilizing Pro-Chex – a program that alerts Byrd each morning around 11 a.m. asking her to approve checks trying to clear the county’s account – and hired Gary Sommerville, who is an accountant and functions as the county’s assistant finance officer, according to Byrd.
Byrd said the fraudulent checks were clearly fake and not ordered. She also said fraud prevention steps were taken when the first check was brought to her attention.
“We started the check clear program immediately,” Byrd said. “We changed all the bank accounts immediately. Everything was changed immediately before the investigation with Glasgow PD even started.”
Byrd reported the fraud to the Glasgow Police Department on March 5, 2024, according to the Kentucky Incident-Based Reporting System report. The checks, which were altered and used the county’s legitimate account and routing numbers for South Central Bank in Kentucky, were linked to John Martin Akins in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Byrd told Glasgow News 1 that no one in the county government is connected to Akins.
Three of the checks used a routing number associated with Cadence Bank, while the other 11 used a number associated with Keesler Bank. Neither bank does business with the county and both banks are in Mississippi, according to the report.
Akins told Mississippi police during an interview that he was engaged to Ruth Kenneth, from Louisiana, who claimed her former boss was court ordered to make payments to her, according to the report. Checks were deposited into Akins’ bank account and then sent to Kenneth via gift cards, the report stated.
Akins’ son, Jeremy, told Glasgow police that his father had been involved in romance scams in the past and didn’t think Kenneth was real. This suspicion was all but confirmed by Glasgow police as the number Akins had provided for Kenneth was confirmed to be for a 22-year-old woman in Texas, and the supposed address tied to Kenneth was attached to a deceased elderly female, according to the report.
Criminal charges were not pursued against Akins because he was “an unknowing participant in a scam,” an April 4, 2025, letter signed by Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner stated.
Barren County was reimbursed for the fraudulent checks, which totaled roughly $58,000, by insurance and South Central Bank, Byrd said.
When asked, neither Byrd nor Gilliam knew how the county’s account and routing numbers were obtained.
Key Facts
• Barren County officials say 14 fraudulent checks were discovered and addressed before a state audit was released
• Checks totaled roughly $58,000 and used the county’s legitimate bank account and routing numbers
• An independent auditor first flagged three checks, leading to discovery of 11 more
• County moved to digital timecards, installed the Pro-Chex system and hired an assistant finance officer
• Officials say the county was fully reimbursed by insurance and its bank
• Prosecutors did not pursue charges against a Mississippi man they described as an unknowing participant in a scam
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