By Jim Hannah
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Boone County's top prosecutor is expected to present evidence in a bond hearing today on how Ronald J. Epling embezzled money from Florence city coffers since 1988 without getting caught.

He also may face additional charges, as an investigation reveals more details of a hidden life led by the accountant.

Commonwealth's Attorney Linda Tally Smith said Mr. Epling, 51, of Delhi Township, has confessed to detectives that he took more than $1 million from the fast-growing city.

Courthouse records in Boone and Hamilton counties show that the CPA certainly spent more than he made working as the top financial officer in Florence. They also show that he led something of a double life, which Ms. Smith says has been financed with "ill-gotten gains" from the taxpayers of Florence.

"This is a man apparently no one really knew. It is very, very strange," said Florence Mayor Diane Ewing Whalen.

"It get to a point where it is all so bizarre ... that I don't know what to say."

Homes, trips, methadone

Court and property records show the $69,000-a-year finance director bought a $200,000 home at 323 Oakwood Park Drive for his girlfriend, a former stripper at the Brass Ass in Newport. He also helped his estranged wife buy a $650,000 home in Northern Kentucky's Triple Crown golf course community, court and property records show.

He gave his girlfriend, Cheryl Hatter, of Delhi Township, money to put in her bank account every Friday, which the recovering and relapsing addict sometime spent on OxyContin and other drugs.

Ms. Hatter told a lifelong friend "that she wanted to purchase OxyContins in the year 2001 and also that Ron Epling had given her $400 to buy eight OxyContins," according to an Appeals Court record filed in March 2002 at the Hamilton County courthouse.

Mr. Epling also helped Ms Hatter evade drug screening tests by giving her samples of his drug-free urine, stored in condoms, according to additional court documents,

In the court records, the Xavier University MBA told of his 21 years as a practicing nudist.

The vacations Mr. Epling and his girlfriend took included a trip to Las Vegas and nudist camps outside Cincinnati, in Crossville, Tenn., and in Tampa, Fla., he said.

Mr. Epling bought Ms. Hatter, whom he met at the dance club in Newport in 1994, a car in cash, he said in the court documents.

In addition, Mr. Epling paid for funeral expenses for Ms. Hatter's sister, Ms. Hatter's $10,000 divorce, a $6,000 radical rapid detox implantation surgery, her methadone and tutoring and babysitting for her son.

Mr. Epling faces a single charge of embezzling $125,000 through a Fifth Third bank account prosecutors say he listed as "Florence Capital Improvements Fund" but linked to his own Social Security number.

But prosecutors say even more charges could be filed today because he has admitted to embezzling more than $1 million during his 15 years with the city of Florence.

Mr. Epling has entered a not guilty plea to the theft charge and remains in Boone County Jail on $1 million cash bond.

His attorney, Burr J. Travis of Florence will ask to have the bond amount reduced during the hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. today in Boone District Court in Burlington.

Sweet local boy done good

In contrast to a man who spent freely to support a girlfriend in Ohio while married to another woman in Kentucky, is Ron Eppling, certified public accountant.

A native of tiny Elkhorn City, Ky., in the East Kentucky mountains near the Virginia state line, Mr. Epling was a local Pike County boy done good. Real good.

He rose through the ranks from the $1 an hour Chevy Chase Cinema doorman position he held as a University of Kentucky college student who studied the euphonium and accounting. He worked as a hotel desk clerk and at a tire place. By 1981, he was the finance head for one of Kentucky's biggest and richest public agencies.

In a position administrating a $154 million budget for the now defunct Cabinet of Human Resources Department of Social Services, he handled programs administration including mental health, mental retardation and other statewide social programs.

The Cabinet of Human Resources was so massive a state agency that it has its own huge office building campus in Frankfort that sits on acres of land across from the Kentucky State University campus.

State officials say they will never be able to check on Mr. Epling's handling of the books for the agency serving Kentucky's 120 counties.

The records for the Cabinet, which was split into two new agencies, have been destroyed for much of the time Mr. Epling served there.

He took a job with the state in Frankfort in 1981 and rose to a graduate account manager level.

During his six years working for the state, Mr. Epling worked for two years as a senior auditor in the Office of the Inspector General in the Cabinet for Human Resources. That's the office that investigates allegations of embezzlement and fraud, amongst other duties.

Mr. Jennings was uncertain if Mr. Epling's personnel file from those years still exists; the state is searching for it.

`Sterling' reputation

When Mr. Epling left the state sometime in 1987, his position was filled by Jeanne Baldwin, who has since been promoted to chief financial officer in the Cabinet for Families & Children.

Mr. Epling was, Ms. Baldwin said, one of the most highly respected former employees of the Cabinet.

"I never hesitated to pick up the phone and call him in Florence when a question arose in my new job."

When the news of Mr. Epling's arrest on theft charges spread around the office, the jaws of the people who knew him dropped to the floor, Ms. Baldwin said.

"This is not the Ron Epling we knew."

E-mail jhannah@enquirer.com