AUBURN - Investigators from the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office believe the theft of nearly $13,000 in taxes, paid in cash to the Cayuga County Treasurer's Office in April 2007, may have been an inside job.

Sheriff David Gould said deputies had kept the investigation silent until now because Gould believed his office would be able to quickly solve the case when the money was discovered missing on Oct. 4, from the fifth floor of the Cayuga County Office Building.

“This wasn't a crime anyone could commit because not a lot of people go up there,” Gould said. “We thought we could solve it internally. We wanted to interview all the people who could have been suspects before we went public and we have believed them all so far.”

Cayuga County Treasurer James Orman said he discovered the theft six months after the crime happened, because several county residents came to his office to prove they had paid their taxes after they were notified that the county never received payment. Outside of the original receipt, the residents were never documented for paying their taxes because the stolen money didn't get processed.

“April is a very busy time for us,” Orman said. “We can't process all the payments for deposit in one day. When someone makes a payment it comes with a tax stub. The tax stub and the payment are stored in an envelope until it's processed.”

If an unprocessed payment and its corresponding stub were stolen at the same time, there would be no way to know until an individual came in to prove they paid their taxes, Orman said.

Because the money was stored in a vault when the office closed, Orman said, he believed the cash was stolen in the middle of the day. During regular business hours, the unprocessed payments were stored in an unlocked box placed on top of a small file cabinet which was stored in a small alcove adjacent to the front desk.

“Most people wouldn't know the money was there because it's kept away from the public,” Orman said. “It's in an area only employees can access. We have people back there all the time. The money was also stored in unmarked envelopes. Somebody must have seen the bills, saw no one looking and took the money.”

The long narrow office, which takes up the north side of the building, has one door for the main desk in the middle of the hallway with three additional doors, which allows access to the rest of the office, spread out on either side of the main entrance.

“(Building employees) who needed to see me on one end or the accountants on an other end of the office use to just walk through the entire place,” Orman said.

Office construction, which took place 10 feet away from the alcove near the time of the theft, brought in additional maintenance workers who were regular employees with the building, Orman said.

With nearly 500 people working in the building, Gould said his investigators have spent the past eight months setting up interviews and gathering what evidence they could.

“The longer the crime goes on undetected, the harder it is to solve,” Gould said. “For months, no one knew this crime happened except for the criminal. All the evidence may not be around anymore.”

The theft caused the office to change its policies, Orman said. Employee through traffic is no longer permitted within the office and the unprocessed payments are now locked in a metal container that resembles a post office box.

The office also purchased additional computer software to improve the efficiency of the payment processing procedure.

“We had just been following the old procedures that were in place before I took the job,” Orman said. “But now we are changing the financial system to allow us more immediate deposits. With the new system and other technology we will look at how we can deposit money faster during our busy times.”

In the meantime, the sheriff's office will continue looking at all aspects of the case, Gould said.

“We have not ruled out anyone,” Gould said. “Until we find the person who stole the money we have to believe it could be anybody.”

Anyone with information regarding this crime is asked to call Lt. Joseph Weeks at 253-3902

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net

How to help

Anyone with information regarding this crime is asked to call Lt. Joseph Weeks at 253-3902.