Covington's city clerk was arrested and charged with three counts of theft by deception in Rockdale County last month.

Tonya Raquel Grier, 41, of Social Circle, is still employed with the city of Covington, according to City Manager Steve Horton. She is, however, currently on administrative leave.

The charges against Grier stem from an incident that occurred at Kohl's, where Grier has been employed for the past 11 years.

According to reports from the Conyers Police Department, they were called to the store on July 19 by the store's loss prevention officer. He reportedly told them that Grier had been creating fraudulent returns in customer service and taking the cash from the register drawer. The loss prevention officer told authorities that the Kohl's corporate office had contacted him about a possible situation after running a routine report for the store on the 15th of July. They noticed that on at least three occasions involving customer returns the original purchase receipt was used more than once in a day, which is extremely rare.

After reviewing a video of the transaction times, the loss prevention officer reportedly saw Grier complete a valid return with a customer there and then, once the customer had left, make an additional return using the remaining items on the customer's original purchase receipt. She can be seen clearly removing the cash from the register and placing it in her pants pocket on at least three occasions, according to reports.

Grier was brought into the office where she freely spoke with authorities, according to the incident report. She told them that she had only done this the three times in which she was caught on camera.

She later told officers that she had been creating fraudulent returns for the last four months but didn't think it went back any further than that. She told officers she would only do it once a week and that she always put the stolen money in her pocket. She also insisted she kept the cash amounts small and that she didn't have a drug problem or money issues, which are the typical reasons given for such theft, according to the report.

Grier was allowed to turn herself in the next day on three charges of theft by deception. The total amount stolen in the three charges was $113.39.