State felony stealing charges filed against former Nixa Street Supervisor Larry Covington (a.) were dismissed today by Associate Circuit Court Judge John Waters.
Christian County prosecutor Ron Cleek says sheet metal, hammers, fasteners and various other items recovered from Covingtons Ash Grove property belonged to the city's public works department, Covingtons former employer, and had a combined value of over five hundred dollars.
Defense attorney Nancy Price argued that the state had inflated the prices of those items and had not itemized them individually.
Judge Waters ruled that the state had not met the burden of proof to send the case to trial that the items recovered were worth more than five hundred dollars, and he told prosecutors that they could not lump the items seized together to make a combined value of of $500.
Cleek (a.) says he will refile the case as soon as he gets an itemized list of items and their value from the Nixa Police Department.
This has no bearing on the federal charges (mail fraud, money laundering and embezzlement) against Covington, his wife Paula, and another former Nixa employee, David Griggs that allege that they stole over a million dollars from the City of Nixa.
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