PORTLAND – A District Court clerk convicted of pocketing $4,110 in fees that came across her desk faces up to five years in prison.

Deborah Willette, who worked for the court system for 21 years before she was fired last year, was found guilty Wednesday by a jury in Cumberland County Superior Court.

Willette had been charged with stealing filing fees paid by participants in divorce cases over a period of three years.

Her case is believed to be the first in which a Maine court clerk was prosecuted for stealing.

Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin would not say what she will recommend when Willette is sentenced next month, but the prosecutor indicated that some jail time was warranted.

“She worked in the same system that hauls people in and gives them jail time for not paying their fines,” she said. “When you abuse a public trust in that way, you need to send a message.”

Willette worked in Portland District Court, processing paperwork in divorce cases. Robbin said beginning in 1997, Willette began stealing cash payments made by people who didn’t have lawyers, and used checks that came in the mail for unrelated cases to balance the books.

Willette escaped detection until Ginger Jelenic, another clerk in the same office, came under suspicion of stealing. During that investigation, financial discrepancies were found in Willette’s records and she was charged with felony theft.

Jelenic will go on trial for misdemeanor theft charges next month.

Willette’s lawyer, Alexander MacNichol, argued that the state could not prove that it was Willette who signed on to her computer, or another clerk who used her code.

The missing money came out of $9.6 million collected by the office over the three-year period, and MacNichol said the comparatively small amount that disappeared could have been lost in the system.

Administrator of the Courts Ted Glessner said the cases do not point to widespread problems in the court system. “We still hold our employees in very high regard,” he said.