PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The jury needed just 62 minutes on Thursday afternoon to find Lonna Carroll guilty.

But the quick verdict from the seven men and five women on the panel doesn’t mean the case is over.

Her court-appointed defense attorney, Tim Whalen, said it is likely he will appeal their decision to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

Carroll, a former employee at the South Dakota Department of Social Services in Pierre, was found guilty of one count of aggravated grand theft and one count of grand theft for allegedly stealing more than $1.7 million from state Division of Child Protection Services from 2010 until her retirement in March 2023.

Whalen raised issues in his closing argument as he asked jurors to find Carroll not-guilty.

His claims were sandwiched between those made by Nolan Welker, an assistant attorney general, and state Attorney General Marty Jackley as they asked the jury to find Carroll guilty.

Welker began the prosecution’s closing argument. His first words were how much was stolen:

“One million

“Seven hundred seventy seven thousand

“Six hundred sixty five dollars

“And seventy three cents.”

He told the jury, “You have the records. You have the testimony. You have the defendant’s own words.”

That was a reference to a recording from last July, when two state investigators arrived unannounced and met with Carroll at her house in Algona, Iowa, where she had moved after her retirement in March 2023.

By the time the visit finished, Carroll was in tears. She had signed a detailed document showing how much investigators determined she had taken over the course of 13 years from the state Division of Child Protection Services. Local police took her away to jail. She has been behind bars since.

Carroll, a program assistant at the child-protection division, had authority to make requests for payments into children’s accounts. She also had authority to approve the requests and authorize the payments.

Two hundred and fourteen times, according to prosecutors, she had taken a state government check, issued at her request and approved by her, to American Bank & Trust in Pierre, deposited the money into one or two of the children’s accounts, and then immediately withdrew from those accounts the same amount in cash, which she then spent on a variety of clothing, costume jewelry and other things.

To hide what she was doing, Carroll made internal transfers using other funds that the department received, according to prosecutors.

“We know the process she used,” Welker told jurors. “We know she stole the money. We know each time how she covered her tracks.”

Carroll’s attorney in turn referred to “the mountain” of information that prosecutors had presented to the jury.

“I guess all I can say is wow,” Whalen told the jury. “It looks insurmountable.” He gestured to where his client was sitting. “Lonna Carroll has got to deal with it.”

Whalen argued there were problems with the timing of the charges, claiming that the statute of limitations had run out, especially for those transactions that occurred before 2016. “They (the state) don’t get to have their cake and eat it, too,” he said.

People at the department have “egg on their face,” Whalen said, because Carroll had been authorized by someone — none of the state’s witnesses could say for sure who — to make those requests, and to approve them, and to approve payments, even though she wasn’t supposed to have more than one of those powers.

The child-protection division uses what’s known as the Family and Child Information System — FACIS — to keep track of children who are in its care. “For thirteen years, alls you had to do was look,” Whalen argued. “Right or wrong, the takings were authorized.”

As to concealment, Whalen pointed out that Carroll kept receipts showing hundreds of dollars spent at a time, and put stolen money into her personal bank account, and wore new clothes day after day to the office. “Who leaves a trail like that?” he asked.

Whalen claimed that Carroll should have been charged with embezzlement. Grand theft involved taking something without permission. “When the taking occurs, and she was authorized, it’s not theft,” he said.

The child-protection division lacked financial-control policies and procedures, based on testimony from a variety of the prosecution’s witnesses, as well as the testimony of the only defense witness, Logan Aukes, an accounting expert, according to Whalen. He noted that the prosecution didn’t call any witness who was currently Carroll’s direct supervisor or any who had been in the past.

“They all scatter like rats. As soon as they’re called in to testify, they scatter,” Whalen said. He added, “The state needs to be examined — hard.”

Jackley delivered the prosecution’s final blows. He reminded the jury that closing arguments aren’t evidence and said Whalen was playing “the blame game.”

Regarding the seven-year statute of limitations in theft cases that starts on the date of discovery, Jackley said none of the witnesses including the defense’s expert produced any evidence that the discovery didn’t occur in February 2024.

As to Carroll’s authorizations, Jackley said, she wasn’t authorized to steal. He reminded jurors of the photographs of the boxes of receipts and tubs of clothes that investigators found in a Pierre storage unit that she rented.

He agreed that the department had “left the door unlocked” but said that didn’t give Carroll the right to steal the money. He said there was plenty of evidence of concealment, such as Carroll’s changing the funding sources to make the withdrawals more difficult to uncover, her refusal to train a successor, and her often taking cash just under the $10,000 threshold for when banks in most cases are required to report to federal authorities.

“She didn’t want the reporting to happen,” Jackley said. And, he pointed out, Carroll had already admitted to the thefts, back on July 17, 2024, when she signed the document that investigators brought to her front door.

Jackley concluded by showing jurors how they should fill out the verdict forms. He said they shouldn’t consider any lesser possible charge.

Circuit Judge Christina Klinger then told two of the 14 jurors that they were excused because they were alternates. The remaining 12 filed out of the courtroom at 3:10. They had been in the jury room less than an hour when word spread that they had reached verdicts.

Carroll returned to the courtroom at 4:10 p.m., accompanied by two deputies in bulletproof vests and full law-enforcement gear. Judge Klinger returned next. Then the jury came back in. The clock on the back wall showed the time was 4:12 p.m.

The judge silently read the verdicts. Next, she had the bailiff read the verdicts aloud for the attorneys, the people in the audience, and for Carroll to hear.

Then the judge polled the jury, name by name.

Each one replied the same.

Guilty.