Former state employee charged for allegedly embezzling foundation funds

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - A former state employee is accused of pocketing thousands of dollars meant to go towards the foundation for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

Heath Hayes is charged is embezzling $17,500, but court documents showed he may have stolen much more.

"We call it the 988 Mental Health Lifeline because we want people to reach out before it's a crisis," said Hayes to News 4 in December.

Hayes was a long-time employee of the ODMHSAS. We talked to him numerous times about the lifeline.

"It's a licensed mental health professional who's able to provide a face to face intervention," said Hayes.

New court documents show he was also a board member of the department's Healthy Minds Healthy Lives foundation.

In January, the department said it discovered three unexplained transactions from the foundation's account Hayes had access to.

"These allegations involve the actions of a former employee of the department that occurred before Commissioner Friesen assumed her role. Once these allegations surfaced, the department immediately retained an outside investigator to look into the matter.  As soon as it was determined that criminal activity may have occurred, law enforcement was notified." said Sasha Teel, the Chief of staff for the ODMHSAS.

According to the documents, investigators said within days of each other, two cashier's checks, totaling more than $142,000, were endorsed by Heath then put into a Bluevine bank account. There was also a $3,000 cash withdrawal, signed by Heath.

When confronted, investigators said "Heath did not deny the transactions, but made up excuses."

After providing what appeared to be bank statements Hayes "resigned en lieu of being fired and paid back everything but a few dollars."

Then, questions of missing donation money began swirling. Detectives discovered four donor checks, worth around $37,000 combined, appeared to have been sent to Heath's home.

Investigators said, "Since Heath had authorization to accept donations, there was a concern he took these and possibly other donations."

Detectives obtained statements directly from Bluevine, which "contradicted the fake bank statements provided by Heath to the ODMHSAS." Investigators said they showed the matching cashier's checks and most of the missing donations.

News 4 called Hayes and knocked on his front door. After multiple messages and an email, we were unable to reach him for comment.

"This alleged wrongdoing was caught early, and the department has undertaken a comprehensive review of internal processes to ensure that this does not happen again. 

Under Commissioner Friesen’s leadership, the agency is committed to operating with integrity and accountability.  Our mission is too important to be hindered by this incident as we continue to provide quality services to all Oklahomans." said Teel in a statement.