McCurtain County Solid Waste manager James (P.J.) Womack and his secretary have been charged with embezzlement by officer, district court records show.
Shae Tubbs
PJ Womack
The charges, related to the diversion of more than $200,000, are especially dangerous to public officials because, in addition to the criminal penalties, if convicted, they could lose all their retirement benefits built up over the years that they served as county employees.
Womack, 53, of Millerton, has been with the solid waste system since August 1, 1994. He gets an annual salary of $81,627.36, plus overtime.
Shae Tubbs, 49, has been with the solid waste system since March 2016. She gets a salary of $53,880.48 plus overtime. Tubbs, from Idabel, ran for the office of Idabel city clerk just a few months ago, losing to incumbent Kim Corley. Tubbs received just a bit less than 35 percent of the vote.
As the newspaper previously reported, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Devin Black has been investigating overtime claims in the solid waste system.
Black said on June 23, the McCurtain County Commissioners’ office contacted District Attorney Mark Matloff about possible misappropriation of funds by Womack and Tubbs.
Coincidentally, this newspaper was also investigating the same thing and had contacted both commissioners and the district attorney to ensure the newspaper’s proposed actions would be legal.
When the newspaper learned the OSBI was investigating, it backed off from any further action.
Black said in a sworn statement that an OSBI forensic auditor looked at payroll data between Jan. 1, 2024, and June 15, 2025, and determined that, as salaried employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the employees were not entitled to overtime pay.
The auditor found that during each month, employees were getting eight hours overtime during their first two-week pay period and 16 hours overtime during their last pay period. None of the overtime was documented on the employees’ time sheets.
During the pay periods examined, $207,819.48 of undocumented overtime had been paid. Black said some of the overtime pay was even paid on holidays where employees were off and the office was closed.
Womack, during the time period examined, received $14,627.24 in overtime. This brought Womack’s pay to $96,254.60.
Tubbs received $9,654.64 in overtime during the period studied. She was also the employee who approved all the time sheets, then sent them to the county clerk’s office for payroll processing.
Black interviewed three prior sold waste board members. None of them recalled authorizing Tubbs to pay employees overtime for hours not worked and on holidays not worked.
