Police clear councilman of mail theft
The Marion Police Department has concluded its investigation into mail being stolen from the City Auditor’s Office and deemed the situation an unfounded report.
During Monday night’s City Council meeting, Marion Police Chief Jay Mcdonald announced there wasn’t mail to steal in the first place from the Auditor’s Office, rather, the documents that Councilmen Josh Daniels, I-AT Large, posted to Facebook were public record and obtained legally.
“Mr. Landon already knows no one stole his mail because there was no mail,” Daniels said. “Are you here Mr. Landon? He’s absent. He’s absent again. Not here to answer any questions.”
City Auditor Robert Landon was not in attendance for the Council meeting on Monday night, marking more than a month since Landon has been in-person at a Council meeting. Landon also did not answer a call seeking comment on Tuesday morning.
Mcdonald said the invoice that was sent by the Ohio Public Works Commission was done through email and added OPWC only sends postmarked notices of payment due dates, not physical copies of invoices, through the mail.
Mcdonald said the investigation was prompted after deputy auditor Kimberly Hutchinson reported that mail was stolen. During a conversation with Major Chris Adkins, who led the investigation, Hutchinson reported Daniels was trying to sabotage the auditor’s office by taking mail and opening it which led to the bill not being paid on time.
However, the investigation report and Mcdonald both stated otherwise.
“Basically, this report says there was no mail to steal,” Mcdonald said to Council on Monday night.
As to how Daniels got copies of the two invoices, the investigation found that Jim Bischoff, city engineer, was alerted by Scott Bishop, assistant city engineer, that Bishop was unable to pay a contracting company conducting a streets and sewers project on S. Grand Avenue. This caused Bishop to reach
out to OPWC, discover the late payments and it eventually led to Bishop and Bischoff obtaining copies of the unpaid invoices through email.
Since discovering this, the city auditor’s office reportedly submitted the $75,349.90 payment on Sept. 29, 2021. However, during council on Monday night, Daniels revealed there is still an outstanding balance of roughly $1,000, which continues to prevent the contracting company from receiving its draw payment from OPWC on the project.
Schertzer added that missing these payments can be detrimental to the city as it relies on OPWC for its grants and insurance-free loans. Currently, the city is gearing up to apply for these OPWC grants and loans and Schertzer said being late on these payments could mean the city misses out on this federal money.
Landon said via text that no money has been put into jeopardy over the OPWC loan and this would’ve only been an issue had the payment never been made.
Further in the investigation, MPD found Tarina Rose, Council Clerk, reported having copies of the invoices sent to her by Marion Mayor Scott Schertzer. Per the investigation, Schertzer was sent these invoice copies from Marion County Treasurer Jan Draper, which led to the mayor sending that email to Bischoff and Cathy Chaffin, service director. Rose was then advised to send these copies to Daniels, the finance committee chairmen, along with the other finance committee members and Todd Schneider, Council president.
Through all of these conversations with the aforementioned officials, each one stated they never opened or took any mail from City Auditor Robert Landon.
Mcdonald said the investigation also appears to indicate that Hutchinson was aware that invoices were sent electronically, not through mail. The police of chief cited an email exchange between Hutchinson and an OPWC representative where Hutchinson referenced this was the second time the bill was paid late because she didn’t receive the bill and asked to verify which names are being emailed the invoice.
“Which to me says she knows they come by email, they don’t come by a hard copy through the mail,” Mcdonald said.
While Mcdonald continued to discuss the investigation with Council, he also noted that this isn’t the first time MPD has been contacted by the city auditor’s office to conduct an investigation. Previously, Mcdonald said MPD investigated a report of possible unauthorized computer use inside the auditor’s office after some city employee checks stated “Hutchinson Payment Company” instead of “City of Marion.”
In this investigation, Mcdonald said it was also deemed an unfounded report. This was because investigators determined no criminal activity had occurred to cause the change on the city checks, rather, it was due to Hutchinson reportedly making changes in the system.
While this case is now closed, both Chaffin and Councilmen Jason Schaber, R-3rd Ward, said their most recent check still says “Hutchinson Payment Company” at the bottom.
“What we found in our investigation was, the only person logged into the computer system when the change was made was deputy auditor Kimberly Hutchinson,” Mcdonald said.
Further, Mcdonald said this claim didn’t seem to be logical as no money was lost or stolen as a result of the mistake.
Through these two investigations, Mcdonald said MPD has spent more than 18 hours of man power looking into unfounded claims.
Mcdonald described this as a significant amount of time to council as Adkins, who Mcdonald said is the city’s best homicide investigator, has been pulled into both of the unfounded reports.