PANAMA CITY — A former Panama City dockmaster has been sentenced on nine counts of stealing public funds.
Susan Payne, 49, was sentenced to five years probation Thursday for nine of her 11 grand theft charges. The former St. Andrews Marina director took money from the marina by pocketing payments on boat slip rentals. Payne took $3,948 intended as payment for slip rentals and then “altered or circumvented” accounting procedures to balance the marina’s books in, presumably, an attempt conceal the theft, authorities said.
Payne pleaded no contest to doing this nine times, collecting somewhere between $300 and $5,000 each time. She will repay $4,407 in restitution.
Additional charges on theft of a $3,500 commercial freezer and witness tampering were dropped.
Attempts to contact Payne on Friday were unsuccessful.
Payne started as a low-level public works employee in the 1980s, climbing the ranks through various departments, before faltering once and nearly being fired for allowing a relative to borrow her code enforcement badge. She later became dockmaster at the St. Andrews Marina.
Payne was fired September 2013 as the marina’s dockmaster after city officials found numerous deficiencies in her job performance. Records indicated she created a hostile work environment, lied to supervisors or the public, used city resources for personal gain and falsified documents.
Several employees complained of Payne being a bully at the time. Marina employees said Payne would regularly grab her breasts and say: “My breasticles are bigger than your testicles,” and “when your testicles are as big and as high as my breasticles, I will listen to what you have to say.”
Payne responded that the marina was a “salty” place, according to city documents.
The Panama City Police Department began a criminal investigation thereafter. Police said Payne tried to influence another marina employee to find and take unspecified documents from the store during their investigation.
Payne then left for Kentucky, and the reason remains unclear. The U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force for the Western District of Kentucky arrested her in Bowling Green in February. She was determined to not be a flight risk and returned to Bay County on her own.
She failed to appear Sept. 10 for a pretrial conference, but the court recalled a warrant for her arrest.
Payne can terminate her probation in three years if all the conditions are met. She also was sentenced to 100 hours of public service.