SAVANNAH, Ga. AP – The court clerk of Clinch County pleaded guilty in federal court to making $73,286 in illegal payments to himself and other county employees as ordered by the chief judge of Georgia’s Alapaha Judicial Circuit.

Daniel Lecesse, the court clerk for 19 years, is the first person to be prosecuted in a federal investigation of payments ordered by Superior Court Judge Brooks E. Blitch that were kept off the county books and never reported to tax authorities.