Former Kickapoo tribal employee charged with embezzlement

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) – A formal Kickapoo tribal employee has been charged with embezzlement.

The U.S. attorney’s office says 45-year-old Heath Hopkins, of Horton, was charged Tuesday with one count of theft from an Indian tribal organization. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

The indictment alleges that Hopkins wrote unauthorized checks to himself from the tribe’s checking account while working as an accounting technician for the Kickapoo Tribe Housing Authority. The indictment says the thefts occurred from August to December of 2013 and involved about $2,800.

If convicted, he faces up to five years in federal prison.

The case is the latest blow to the Kickapoo Tribe, whose 30-square-mile reservation is in northeast Kansas in Brown County. Three former tribal leaders were charged earlier this year with misusing federal money.