Anson’s former tax collector still owes the town hundreds of thousands of dollars, prosecutors say, a decade after she was convicted of what is believed to be the largest municipal embezzlement scheme that resulted in prosecution in state history.

Claudia Viles, now 76, has effectively paid just under $91,000 of the $566,257.65 she was ordered to pay in restitution to the town when sentenced in 2016, according to court documents the Office of the Maine Attorney General filed in April. 

Much of that total comes from cash the Maine State Police seized when searching Viles’ home early in their criminal investigation, as well as the town’s sale of its interest in some of Viles’ properties after her conviction. In recent years, Viles has been making relatively small, periodic payments, town records show.

In short, the attorney general’s office wants a judge to determine how Viles will pay any of the remaining $475,585.74, now that she has served her prison sentence and probation time. Since the April filing, Viles has made an additional payment of $2,000, attorney general’s office spokesperson Rebecca Stefansky said.

A hearing on the state’s motion to enforce the restitution order is scheduled for June 2 at the Somerset County Superior Court in Skowhegan. 

Prosecutors are asking a judge to find Viles is in default, Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin wrote in the recent filing. A judge could then order Viles to pay the restitution in a “reasonable manner” or send her to jail for up to six months.

Viles, reached via telephone Thursday, declined to comment on her case. 

The attorney who represented Viles in her criminal case and appeal, Walter McKee of the Augusta law firm McKee Morgan, said Viles is no longer his client. No other attorney for Viles was listed in court records as of this week. Prosecutors do not know whether Viles has a lawyer, attorney general’s office spokesperson Danna Hayes said.

Viles, of North Anson, was Anson’s elected tax collector from 1982 to 2015 and held other town positions from 1973 to 1982.

She steadfastly maintained her innocence while the criminal case unfolded a decade ago. At her sentencing, she vowed to clear her name as long as she is living. Dozens submitted letters to the court in support of Viles, describing her as a compassionate, generous woman.

But both her appeal of her convictions to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and a post-conviction petition were unsuccessful.

The investigation into her embezzlement began in early 2015 when the town implemented new financial software and town administrative assistant Triss Smith discovered a $77,000 discrepancy in the excise tax collected and the amount deposited.

Auditors later examined town records going back to 2010 and determined the missing excise tax money totaled $500,948.

According to newspaper archives, Viles stayed in her job amid the criminal investigation and civil lawsuit initially brought by the town against her — until a grand jury indicted her in September 2015 and the Maine Municipal Association said it could no longer bond her as tax collector.

A jury ultimately convicted Viles a year later of all counts: one felony count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer, 11 misdemeanor counts of failure to pay tax or file a return and one misdemeanor count of tampering with public records or information.

Robbin, the prosecutor, said at the time and wrote in her sentencing recommendation that Viles likely had been embezzling funds since the beginning of her tenure as tax collector. A statute of limitations on the theft offense limited the scope of prosecutors’ case to a period beginning in 2009.

Robbin painted Viles as an elected official using antiquated systems who operated with no oversight, likening her during the 2016 trial to a free-range chicken and a fox guarding a henhouse. 

She convinced a jury that Viles pocketed the money, but evidence of where it might have gone was not presented at trial, the Morning Sentinel reported. Evidence also showed Viles did not file personal income tax returns for years, and some motor vehicle registration forms she was responsible for were never located.

“In the office’s collective memory, we are not aware of a larger municipal theft,” Hayes, of the attorney general’s office, said Thursday in written responses to questions. 

Superior Court Justice Robert E. Mullen sentenced Viles to eight years in prison, with all but five years suspended, and three years of probation. He also ordered her to pay the town of Anson $566,257.65 in restitution, $500,948 for the theft of excise taxes and $65,309.65 for economic losses.

As of April, court records show, Anson’s restitution has come from various sources. The town received the $58,500 that state police found at Viles’ home while executing a search warrant; $27,000 from selling its interest in two of Viles’ properties; and $5,171.91 in payments from Viles to the Maine Department of Corrections while she served her sentence.

Viles completed probation in July 2024, Robbin wrote in her filing. State law indicates Viles must now make the payments through the attorney general’s office.

The town also received $250,000 from its insurance company, the Maine Municipal Association. That was paid out before the town sued Viles and prosecutors charged her criminally. 

But MMA wants its money back. And as far as prosecutors are concerned, the insurance payment on the town’s claim is not restitution.

“The insurance company is a victim since it too has paid for Ms. Viles’s theft,” Hayes said. “The insurance company should have a right to reimbursement through subrogation.”

Former Anson administrator Nancy Gove, who resigned in April from her post in Anson to take a similar position in her hometown of Mercer, said in an interview Wednesday she contacted the attorney general’s office around the beginning of this year after MMA asked town officials about the status of restitution collection efforts. 

Gove then worked with the attorney general’s office to make sure the town’s financial records matched what prosecutors had on file, she said.

“Payments have been sporadic at best,” Gove wrote in an April 6 letter to the attorney general’s office, filed in court. “Currently, we support any action to enforce this judgment.”

The town still has liens on all of Viles’ real estate, which is in Anson and Embden, Gove said. 

The town also has two civil judgments that allow it to collect the restitution Viles owes. 

One is a conversion of the criminal restitution order, while the other stems from the town’s civil lawsuit against Viles that preceded her indictment, court records state. The latter, which puzzled even the Supreme Judicial Court when it upheld the ruling, is for the same amount but includes an additional order for $39,620.52 in prejudgment interest.

Hayes said however the money is paid — through a civil or administrative process, during probation to the corrections department or now to the attorney general’s office — it all counts the same toward the criminal restitution.