Note: This story was updated on Oct. 5 to correct the name of the energy cooperative.
Just before his trial was to start Monday in Kingston, Tennessee, a former accountant with Volunteer Energy Cooperative entered a guilty plea to a charge of theft over $250,000, stemming from a 2018 Tennessee Comptroller's Office investigation.
Jason Timothy Kittle, 46, originally booked into the Meigs County Jail with an Athens, Tennessee, address, was accused in the investigation of stealing almost $1 million from the cooperative -- a nonprofit utility that serves all or parts of 17 Tennessee counties, according to state officials.
"He faces a sentence of 15-25 years as a range of punishment. There was no agreement as to what the punishment would be, but for a sentence of that length, he's not probation eligible, so it's going to be a sentence to serve," Ninth Judicial District Assistant District Attorney Robert Edwards said Tuesday in a phone interview.
The district consists of Loudon, Meigs, Morgan and Roane counties.
Edwards said the court will decide where within that 15-25-year range Kittle will be sentenced. Kittle could also be ordered to pay up to a $50,000 fine, he said. Kittle will remain free on a $100,000 bond until his sentencing hearing Jan. 11, 2023.
"We have agreed to delay sentencing until a presentencing report can be done," Edwards said.
Under state law, Kittle will become eligible for parole after serving 30% of his sentence.
The trial scheduled for Monday had been moved to Roane County to avoid using jurors from Meigs County, where Kittle was indicted, Edwards said. Volunteer Energy Cooperative, serves all Meigs County residents but only a tiny portion of Roane County's residents, so the jury pool didn't include anyone from that small area, Edwards said.
The sentencing hearing is set for Roane County.
Kittle's attorney, Athens, Tennessee-lawyer David Calfee, declined comment when contacted by phone Tuesday.
According to the state investigation, Kittle was accused of stealing at least $994,981 between June 2011 and December 2017.
Then-State Comptroller Justin Wilson said the theft was one of the largest the agency had ever investigated and the weaknesses that allowed the theft to occur were not uncommon.
(READ MORE: FBI investigating Cleveland, Tennessee, church administrator for embezzlement)
The Comptroller's Office said Kittle used three schemes to steal funds for his personal use.
Kittle, over more than six years, stole $735,318 by making 242 transfers from a Volunteer Energy Cooperative account to his personal bank account, according to the Comptroller's Office.
Another $229,293 was taken by making 204 payments to his personal credit card account, according to the Comptroller's office.
Kittle also was accused of stealing another $30,368 by making 48 payments to a credit card account in the name of a family member.
Kittle concealed his thefts by recording the fraudulent transactions in the cooperative's accounting system as online payment fees, returns or similar transactions, according to auditors. Kittle also managed and reconciled the statements of the cooperative's bank account, which allowed the theft to remain undetected for years.
(READ MORE: Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, bookkeeper sentenced to prison for embezzlement)
Kittle admitted to cooperative officials he made payments to his personal credit card account from the utility's bank account, according to the Comptroller's Office. He was fired Jan. 2, 2018.
Created in the 1930s, the nonprofit Volunteer Energy Cooperative serves more than 115,900 customers in Tennessee, with more than 10,000 miles of power lines stretching from Georgia to the Kentucky border. Its service area includes all or portions of Bledsoe, Bradley, Cumberland, Fentress, Hamilton, Loudon, McMinn, Meigs, Morgan, Overton, Pickett, Polk, Putnam, Roane, Rhea, Scott and White counties.
The cooperative and its members welcome justice in the case, interim utility President/CEO Patty Hurley said.
"Mr. Kittle stole from VEC, but more than that, he stole from our members," Hurley said Tuesday in a phone interview. "We are pleased with the guilty plea."
Hurley said she and other cooperative officials were in Kingston on Monday for the expected trial.
"We will attend the sentencing hearing," Hurley said. "It's my understanding that we will be allowed to give a 'victim's impact statement' at the hearing."
Hurley said officials were prepared to provide the statement Monday, just in case it was needed.
"It's disappointing because he was an employee, but it's more disappointing that he aggrieved the members," she said.
Edwards noted that the cooperative was insured against the loss, so ratepayers were not directly affected by the theft.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.