Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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Rose M. Wilson of Warren stands in court Tuesday with Atty. Michael Rossi as she pleads guilty to a felony charge of theft in office.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
For the second time in two days, a Warren-area government worker has pleaded guilty to theft in office.
Rose M. Wilson, 47, of Bonnie Brae Avenue, entered the plea Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, admitting she took $22,800 worth of towing-fee money she was entrusted to handle for the Warren Police Department.
Wilson, a 20-year city employee, could get up to five years in prison when she is sentenced in about five weeks. The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office will recommend that she receive incarceration of some type — such as prison or jail time, said Chris Becker, assistant county prosecutor.
Wilson, who worked in the police records department, was responsible for handling the $91,000 in towing fees the city had collected since the fee was enacted in late 2009.
Wilson resigned from the police department effective Nov. 8, Police Chief Tim Bowers said Tuesday.
Wilson stood with Atty. Michael Rossi during her hearing before Judge Andrew Logan, giving the yes and no answers required by the judge.
At the end of the hearing, she was taken in handcuffs to the Trumbull County jail, where she was fingerprinted and booked. She was released after posting $2,500 pretrial-release bond, meaning she didn’t have to pay anything.
The fees Wilson stole are paid by anyone needing to retrieve a towed car. The person has to pay a $75 processing fee at the police-department dispatching center, then take the receipt to the impound lot and collect the vehicle after paying the towing and impound fees.
Police-department shift commanders deliver the processing-fee money — 90 percent of it cash — to a safe that Wilson controlled, Bowers said last week.
Bowers noticed in late October that the amount of cash in the towing account was below what he would have expected and asked the city auditor’s office and then his internal-affairs officer to investigate.
Wilson apparently was having financial trouble, according to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court records. The Ohio Department of Taxation secured two liens against her in March. The liens, for $10,934 and $5,259, were for personal income tax.
On Monday, a Trumbull County maintenance worker also pleaded guilty to theft in office, at the courthouse, for taking $160 worth of fundraising money from the Trumbull County Juvenile/Family Court building on Main Avenue Southwest.