The very DeKalb County conservative official who decried corruption and accounting irregularities during her tenure as county commissioner is now serving time in prison for committing those exact crimes.
Elaine Boyer was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for defrauding DeKalb taxpayers and is required pay $87,350 in restitution to the county.
Boyer was the county’s lone Republican and its longest-serving member exalted herself the watchdog over wasteful spending. In private, however, Boyer was using taxpayer’s money to cover up the financial shambles Boyer and her husband, John, were drowning in.
The couple had lost their Stone Mountain strip mall to foreclosure and their Smoke Rise home to financial mismanagement of their own personal funds.
But that’s not all. Boyer stole tens of thousands of dollars from the county to keep up appearances as a well-to-do, upper middle class family. Boyer spent the money on herself and her family, including purchases at hotels and high-end department stores, using her county Visa card. That card also paid for family airline tickets, rental cars, personal cell phone expenses and a ski resort booking, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
While Boyer repaid the county for some of her purchases within days, weeks or months — essentially treating the money as bridge loans — she failed to repay about $8,000 until after the AJC sought receipts documenting her spending.
The husband, John Boyer, also has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in May, the AJC reports.
The Boyer scandal and other county corruption investigations inspired an overhaul in the county’s Purchasing Department, the P-card policy has been changed and funding for the Ethics Board has been increased.
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