A former employee of a Hot Springs business who embezzled almost $200,000 in company funds in 2017 has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty in Garland County Circuit Court.
Randall Allen Morris, 52, who has remained in custody since his arrest Dec. 28, 2017, pleaded guilty to a felony count of theft of property over $25,000 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with 10 years suspended, and ordered to pay $199,114.15 in restitution and $170 in court costs upon his release.
While Morris was still in custody on the theft charge, he was arrested on March 2, 2018, on 2,000 felony counts of distributing, possessing or viewing of matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child after pornographic material was allegedly found on his work computer after he was terminated.
The state withdrew its charges on Sept. 18, 2018, after Morris was indicted in July 2018, on three federal counts involving child pornography. He is set to stand trial on the federal charges Feb. 4 in U.S. District Court at Hot Springs.
According to the probable cause affidavit on the theft charge, on Nov. 3, 2017, Hot Springs police responded to Flossie's Funnel Cakes, located at 226 Castleberry St., in reference to a theft and spoke to employees who stated they had logged onto the company's PayPal account that day and discovered another employee, identified as Morris, had made numerous transactions from the company's account into his own private PayPal account.
The transactions occurred several times each month from January to October 2017, ranging in amounts from $52 to more than $1,800. The employees noted none of the transactions were authorized.
Detective Patrick Langley received documentation from Flossie's corporate accounting firm, dated Dec. 7, 2017, which noted Morris had both diverted funds to himself and to unauthorized websites. They were able to determine Morris diverted $134,038 into his own account and $65,076.51 to the websites for his personal benefit.
A warrant was issued for Morris' arrest and police had posted his photo on social media asking for the public's help in locating him. About 90 minutes after the post was made on Dec. 29, a guard at the Garland County Library, 1427 Malvern Ave., called and said he had observed Morris working at one of the library's computers.
Officers responded and took him into custody without incident. Morris was initially held on $50,000 bond, but after the child pornography charges were filed his bond was increased to $1 million.