Mayor indicted for stealing over a quarter-million dollars from dying grandmother

A mayor in Tennessee has been charged and indicted with stealing more than a quarter of a million dollars from his own grandmother.

Christopher Scott Jones, currently serving as mayor of Mount Carmel in northeast Tennessee, allegedly stole more than $300,000 from his grandmother in the last years of her life between November 2014 and January 2016 by writing checks from her account to himself for false reimbursements.

The Kingsport Times-News reports that his grandmother passed away in 2016.

“In August 2019, at the request of 3rd District Attorney General Dan Armstrong, TBI Special Agents began investigating allegations of theft against Christopher Scott Jones,” said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation after allegedly finding evidence of the fake checks.

The Hawkins County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Jones with one count of theft over $250,000 and was arrested and booked into the Hawkins County Jail on a $300,000 bond, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Mount Carmel was incorporated in 1961 and has an estimated population of around 5,300 people.