Nye County employee charged with embezzling $100K

A former Nye County Juvenile Probation Department employee accused of embezzling more than $100,000 from the agency has formally been charged.

Melinda Hinrichs, who worked as an administrative assistant for the department, was charged Monday with one count each of theft, embezzlement and fraudulent appropriation of property, according to her criminal complaint.

Hinrichs is accused of pocketing department funds between 2014 and September 2019.

“The people of Nye County can rest assured that we will continue working on this case and we will do everything possible to find out how this could have happened, how it went on for as long as it apparently did, and who could have or should have stopped it sooner,” Nye County District Attorney Chris Arabia said Thursday.

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Hinrichs in October, after receiving reports that an employee had been embezzling funds at the county’s juvenile detention center.

Hinrichs had resigned from her position after the investigation was opened, according to the Sheriff’s Office, which previously said that Hinrichs was cooperative throughout the investigation and that she had attempted to repay the missing funds and “provided valuable information about the money she stole.”

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.