Ex-St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office finance chief faces prison time at sentencing

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – A former St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office finance director faces at least three years in prison when she’s sentenced Tuesday on multiple felony charges related to an embezzlement scheme.

Raye Brutnell, 49, pleaded guilty in May to two counts of grand theft, one count of executing a scheme to defraud a financial institution and one count of criminal use of personal identification information, a charge that carries a mandatory three-year sentence.

Brutnell, the Sheriff’s Office finance director since 2013, was fired in the wake of her 2018 arrest on a warrant charging her with embezzling more than $700,000 from the agency over a five-year span.

Under the terms of her plea agreement, the recommended length of Brutnell’s sentence depends on how much of the money she’s able to repay. Ultimately, a judge will have the final say on her fate.

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If Brutnell has repaid nearly $860,000 in restitution by Tuesday’s hearing, for instance, she would likely serve three years in prison and five years’ probation. But if none of it is repaid, she could get more than seven years in prison followed by 10 years of probation.

As part of the plea deal, Brutnell has agreed not to be employed in any role that would carry fiduciary duties. She also cannot have any signatory or checking account authority in her employment.

Brutnell was arrested in November 2018 after colleagues found 63 checks totaling $673,422 had been issued to bogus vendors over a five-year period. Investigators determined she used relatives’ names to create bank accounts for fake vendors, forged signatures on checks and deposited the checks into her own account.

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Brutnell, who was making nearly $100,000 at the time of her arrest, told investigators the thefts were fueled by financial strain, according to the warrant. Some of the money paid for her father’s stay in a nursing home, while some went to her car and mortgage payments.

This story will be updated following the sentencing hearing, which is set for 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.