Public Works Theft—

Town Will Deposit Recovered Checks

By Andrew Gorosko

First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal said that the town soon plans to cash thousands of dollars worth of recovered personal checks, which were made payable to the town in 2003 for waste disposal services, but which were allegedly stolen by a former town employee.

Mr Rosenthal said May 11 that the town plans to deposit the recovered checks at Fleet Bank next week, likely by May 19.

The residents who wrote those checks to the town received public waste disposal services, but the town has not yet received the funds required to provide those services.

The town has received a batch of the recovered checks from Danbury Superior Court and expects to receive more recovered checks, Mr Rosenthal said.

The typical amount of a check which has been recovered by the town is about $80. Some checks bear smaller amounts. Most of the checks are dated between July and December of 2003. Some of the checks are dated during the first half of 2003, Mr Rosenthal said.

If residents submitted a check to the town last year for waste disposal services and that check did not clear, that check may now clear after the town deposits it at Fleet Bank, Mr Rosenthal explained.

Mr Rosenthal said he wants to notify residents of the town’s plan to deposit the checks so that residents’ checking accounts contain sufficient funds to cover the deposited checks, and do not become overdrawn.

If some of the deposited checks do not clear, the town will seek repayment of the waste disposal fees from the residents who wrote the original checks, Mr Rosenthal said.

The town also will seek to recover funds from residents who wrote checks that were either lost or destroyed, if possible, he said.

Also, the town is pursuing claims with its insurers to recover cash that was stolen from the public works department, he said.

The town’s insurance carriers want the town to make “good faith” efforts to collect lost funds before the carriers pay insurance claims, Mr Rosenthal said.

Court Case

On April 21, a Danbury Superior Court judge approved the Town of Newtown’s request to return to it the 522 recovered stolen checks that were made payable to Newtown in 2003 for waste disposal fees. Those checks were being held as evidence in a criminal felony prosecution involving that theft. Those checks had been seized as evidence by Newtown police.

Photocopies of those checks will serve as evidence in the court case against Trisha Johnson, 22, of Judd Road, Southbury. The court case is pending.

On April 7, Ms Johnson, who formerly worked as Newtown’s landfill administrator, entered a pro forma plea of “not guilty” to a charge of first-degree larceny in connection with her alleged embezzlement of $88,832 in public funds, in the form of cash and checks, between February 2003 and January 2004. Police charged Ms Johnson on a court warrant on March 24.

Ms Johnson, who is free on $25,000 bail, is represented by Bridgeport lawyer Eugene Riccio.

The court file on the Johnson case contains voluminous detail concerning the items that the defendant is accused of stealing from the town. The file contains an inventory of 522 checks made payable to the Town of Newtown, which police seized as evidence, as well as an inventory of bank deposit slips, vouchers, cash, and miscellaneous items.

According to the Newtown police arrest warrant application, “The combined amount of cash and checks that was stolen between February 1, 2003, and January 2004 is approximately $88,832.” Police documents list the amount of cash stolen as $34,036, and the amount of checks stolen as $54,796. Police say they have recovered $38,645 of the $54,796 in checks.

The approximately $34,000 in stolen cash reportedly has been spent. Police documents indicate Ms Johnson told them she stole the funds to support a drug habit.