Charlevoix County Sheriff's Office tells us former Director of Veterans Affairs has been charged with 27 counts of embezzlement.

Detective Fred Hasty on February 5th met with Charlevoix County Director of Veterans Affairs Kaylee Wells.

Wells told the detective she was employed by Veterans Affairs while Joshua Galle was the Director.

Stating she had the authority to disburse $50 Meijer vouchers to vets in 2021 and 2022, she provided a spreadsheet required for reporting use of the vouchers.

Such as who it was distributed to, which officer distributed it, the date of distribution and the unique number with each voucher.

Emmet County Veterans Affairs noticed a voucher was given in 2022 to a veteran who passed away in 2021 and Galle was the one who gave it to him.

Detective Hasty said Meijer Fraud Investigator was able to look up information related to the voucher use, that's where records showed the voucher was used with a Meijer loyalty number.

The number used with the voucher belonging to Galles wife.

With those same records they were able to confirm the Visa card used on the transaction was used with 25 other food voucher transactions.

After a search warrant was executed for Galle's Bank records at Navy Federal Credit Union, records show Galle has/had a Visa card matching the card used with the voucher transactions.

Out of the 27 vouchers issued by Galle between February and September of 2022 two of the people died before the date he logged giving them the vouchers and all of the people named never actually got a voucher.

Galle is now facing 27 felony charges of embezzlement.