A state lawmaker tells KIRO 7 that a highly paid, highly placed employee with the Department of Corrections is breaking state law while on the job.

KIRO 7 Investigators have found that a state investigation has been launched into allegations that hundreds of hours have been spent on private businesses run by state Department of Corrections Director Belinda Stewart.

Stewart makes $102,000 a year as a director for the DOC.

But according to documents obtained by KIRO 7, she spent hundreds of hours raising money, planning events and fundraisers for her non-profit private businesses -- there are at least seven of them -- while she was on the clock.

She's also accused of often using her DOC employees, offices, vehicles, computers and other state resources to help.

Stewart is the Communications and Outreach Director at the DOC.

According to the ethics complaint recently uncovered by KIRO 7, Stewart is currently under investigation for spending at least 593 hours of taxpayer time, working not for the taxpayers, but instead on as many as seven of her personal non-profit businesses.

"These are pretty substantial charges, and the documentation to back up the charges is rather extensive," Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, said. "I mean, this is not a single occasion, this is multiple occasions over multiple it appears non-profit corporations."

Carrell is the legislator who filed the complaint. He asked the state's executive ethics board to look into what Stewart is doing with her time, and her employees, while at DOC headquarters in Tumwater.

"I'm very concerned, and I think that part of my job as a state senator is to protect the public interest and make sure somehow charges like this are being addressed," Carrell said.

Perhaps no one is more upset about the allegations against Stewart than Tammy Delong Gipe, the sister of Tina Delong Griswold, one of the four Lakewood officers murdered by Maurice Clemmons in November 2009.

We traveled to Kalispell, Montana, to talk with Gipe.

"It's very hard to understand how someone, an organization as that, can be so cruel, so cruel," she said.

Gipe trusted Stewart when she and her family allowed Stewart to use Griswold's name to fundraise for Stewart's nonprofit organization, the National Association of Women in Criminal Justice.

Gipe said that within weeks of her sister's murder, Stewart contacted the family, offering to raise money for a scholarship in Griswold's name.

"You just want something beautiful, something good to come out of such a tragedy," Gipe said. "We feel they preyed on that."

Gipe said that when family members asked Stewart for details -- including how much money was being raised at fun-runs in Griswold's honor and how much money was going toward scholarships -- Stewart would not answer the questions.

"My mother had some issues with, and some questions on, where the money was going," Gipe said.

Fed up, the Delong family asked Stewart to quit using Griswold's name and instead started their own memorial foundation.

The Delong family said they believe the ethics allegations mirror their own concerns about Stewart and her nonprofits. They claim they've been trying to get someone at the DOC to listen to their concerns for months, without any results.

Until now.

"The ethics investigation is going to prove a lot about our suspicions," Gipe said. "I do hope that we're finally taken seriously, that people aren't looking at us like we have some other agenda than -- we just want peace."

Stewart has been investigated and disciplined by the DOC before: in 2005, for selling Avon products to staff members while she worked at Purdy women's prison and for hiring her sister.

With regard to these newest allegations, after Sen. Carrell filed his complaint, the executive ethics board turned the investigation over the DOC, which has asked for an extension.

DOC secretary Eldon Vail said Thursday that the investigation into Stewart is "complicated" and "taking longer than expected."

Other than that, Vail wouldn't make any further comment.

Stewart has not returned calls from KIRO 7.

Documents: Complaint Against DOC Employee