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.