Post by WaTcHeR on Sept 12, 2006 16:37:07 GMT -5
Officer Eric J. Smith
09.12.2006 - A former Princeton Police Department officer already indicted on federal embezzlement charges now stands accused of stealing close to $5,000 in seized cash from the police department’s evidence room during his stint as a detective.
Officer Eric J. Smith, 32, was arrested by Princeton police officers at his East Market Street home at 5:20 p.m. Friday on warrants charging him with theft by unlawful taking over $300 and tampering with physical evidence.
Police said Smith is accused of taking $4,601 in cash from the evidence room, located in the police station, between June and December 2005.
He was hired as a patrol officer in April 2004 and served as a detective for about seven months, while Det. Jonathan Sholar was on active military duty.
The missing cash was noticed upon Sholar’s return to the police force this June.
An audit of the contents of the evidence room confirmed the cash was missing, said Maj. R.L. Howton Tuesday.
At the time of Smith’s service, only he and Chief Brian Ward had keys to the evidence room, Howton added. Ward is now the sole keyholder.
Smith resigned from the police department in May 2006 after being on unpaid administrative leave since December 2005, when he was arrested by FBI agents on federal indictments stemming from an embezzlement investigation during his tenure as a police officer for the City of Providence.
In that federal indictment, Smith is charged with embezzling $10,000 in Providence city funds and laundering the money, between January 2001 and April 2004.
Smith entered a guilty plea to that charge in May. As part of the plea, he agreed to testify at the trial of former Providence City Clerk Sara Stevens, who is accused of embezzling more than $900,000 from the city.
After several weeks of investigating the cash missing from the evidence room, Princeton’s police chief had an arrest warrant issued for Smith on Thursday, Aug. 17.
Soon after the warrant was issued, though, Smith volunteered to begin making restitution payments, and police held off on the arrest.
“We knew he wasn’t going anywhere, and he wasn’t a threat,” Howton said.
The department’s primary goal was to get its money back.
“They were trying to get as much restitution back as they could,” Howton said. “It didn’t matter who it was, we were just trying to recoup the money.”
The same situation often applies in cases of employee theft from other businesses, where the business owner will try to recover as much of the stolen funds/merchandise as possible.
Police said Smith repaid all but $757.46 of the stolen funds.
When the restitution effort stopped and police felt no further payments would be forthcoming, they proceeded with the arrest.
The arrest, Howton said, was inevitable, regardless of whether or not Smith completed the repayment.
Smith was jailed on a $5,000 cash bond, which was posted Tuesday morning. He is scheduled to appear in Caldwell District Court Thursday.
www.timesleader.net/articles/stories/public/200609/06/04hZ_news.html