Kade Holliday
Craighead County Clerk Kade Holliday was arrested Monday morning and charged with 13 counts of theft of property and one count of abuse of office.
District Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington said in a news release that auditors with the Division of Legislative Audit obtained and examined bank records that “raised suspicion of theft of county funds from an account Holliday maintained in his official capacity as county clerk.”
The Craighead County Judge Marvin Day alerted Ellington’s office to the findings on June 25. Day filed a lawsuit Monday against Holliday, saying he had taken more than $1.5 million from the county treasury since late January and transferred it to his personal accounts.
According to The Associated Press, the lawsuit asks that Holliday be ordered to repay at least $1.4 million owed to the state retirement system and the Internal Revenue Service.
Attorneys for Holliday, a member of Arkansas Business’ 2016 20 in Their 20s class, told Jonesboro ABC affiliate KAIT-TV, Channel 8, that Holliday had resigned and will cooperate with investigators.
Last year, Holliday pledged $500,000 to Arkansas State University to establish an endowed professorship of jazz studies and an endowed scholarship for students in the jazz program.
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