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Teen who worked in Mahoning treasurer's office indicted for third time
YOUNGSTOWN
A temporary helper who worked in the Mahoning County Treasurer’s Office has been indicted by a county grand jury for the third time on charges linked to his job in that office last summer.
Kyheem Underwood, 19, of Jean Street, Campbell, was indicted Thursday on three counts each of theft in office, theft and receiving stolen property and six counts of forgery.
Each theft-in-office count charges him with stealing between $1,000 and $7,500 while working in an official capacity.
“One of his duties was to open and sort mail, and, in the course of doing so, he helped himself to some of those checks,” forged them and tried to cash them, county Treasurer Dan Yemma said, referring to real-estate tax-payment checks mailed to the office.
“The message that should be sent is that you will be caught. You will not get away with something like this due to the nature of the checks and balances that we have in place,” Yemma said.
Underwood was an employee of the Mahoning-Columbiana Training Association working in the county treasurer’s office and not a county employee, Yemma said.
Nicholas Modarelli, chief assistant county prosecutor, declined to comment Thursday on the Underwood case.
Even before Thursday’s indictment, Underwood was a wanted man after Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court issued a bench warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for his Monday sentencing on theft-in-office and check-forgery charges dating back to Aug. 10, 2015, to which he had pleaded guilty.
The prosecution recommended probation, with the first part of it to be served in the county jail, and restitution to the county of $175 for a real-estate tax-payment check he cashed.
Each charge to which Underwood pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
The January indictment resulted from further investigation after the first county grand jury indictment against Underwood in October that had charged Underwood with theft, receiving stolen property and forgery, all fifth-degree felonies dating back to Aug. 27, 2015.
In that case, Underwood was charged with trying to cash a $4,200 tax-payment check.
That case was resolved by an agreement in which the prosecution dropped the theft and forgery counts and reduced the charge of receiving stolen property to the first-degree misdemeanor level.
After Underwood pleaded guilty to that reduced charge, visiting Judge Richard D. Reinbold Jr. put him on six months’ probation.
The charges against Underwood arose after Rea & Associates of New Philadelphia, which audits the county’s finances, observed in a June 30, 2015, management letter to county officials that mail to the county treasurer’s office containing tax-payment checks “can go unopened for an extended period of time” due to staffing problems.
Yemma responded then that his office opens and sorts its mail daily, processes it as quickly as possible and continues to work to improve its efficiency in this task.
In its 2013 audit, Rea & Associates made the same observation about unopened mail and said the treasurer’s office lacks the resources to ensure timely deposit of the checks mailed to it, resulting in increased risk of error and fraud.
During its three-week tax-collection rush periods in March and August, the treasurer’s office opens and sorts its mail daily, but, due to the volume of payments, not all real-estate tax-payment checks can immediately be deposited in the bank, Yemma said Thursday.
The office mails about 120,000 real-estate tax bills every half year, with 100,000 taxpayers mailing a payment check to the treasurer’s office in response.
The office collects about $120 million in real-estate taxes every half year, Yemma said.
Underwood was the only one of eight to 10 summer MCTA workers in the treasurer’s office over the past two years to cause a problem, Yemma said, adding that he invited two MCTA workers, who did a good job last summer, back to his office this summer.
The treasurer’s office had 16 full-time employees in 2007 when he started as assistant treasurer and now has 11, said Yemma, who became treasurer in 2011.
“The reality of the economic situation dictated that we do more with less, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.