A former employee of the Cape Girardeau County Juvenile Office charged with embezzling more than $97,000 from local schools waived her right to a preliminary hearing Friday morning in associate circuit court.

Robin Whitson, 38, of Cape Girardeau was charged Sept. 11 with depositing 10 checks meant for the Cape Girardeau and Jackson public schools into her own account at the Cape Regional Credit Union.

Associate Circuit Judge Gary Kamp bound Whitson's case over to the circuit court level for an arraignment Oct. 15. She remains free on a reduced $50,000 bond, with the condition she not leave the state and remain homebound every evening.

The embezzlement is alleged to have occurred over 12 months, dating back to September 2001. The checks were deposited at the credit union's ATM. Credit union president Jim Cauble said deposits placed into the ATM are not handled by local employees, but by an outside firm that collects the deposits and processes them in St. Louis at the Educational Credit Union.

To avoid future thefts, county officials have since decided that checks made out to school districts to fund the alternative schools for troubled students will be mailed from the county treasurer's office to district offices rather than funneled through the juvenile office.