Employee steals $400,000 from county, buys lottery tickets, feds say. He gets prison
A former public works employee will serve prison time for stealing $422,168 from a Georgia county and using that money to buy lottery tickets and make other purchases, federal prosecutors said.
As a supervisor for the Glynn County Department of Public Works, William Harold Richards embezzled the county’s money from June 2021 to September 2023, according to court documents. Glynn County is in southeastern Georgia, along the coast.
His scheme unraveled after a co-worker saw “suspicious charges” on his county-issued employee credit card, prosecutors said.
An investigation involving the Glynn County Police Department and the FBI revealed Richards made fraudulent charges from his county credit card and other employees’ cards, according to prosecutors.
He issued payments to a fake company he established and transferred the county’s money “to his own bank account,” prosecutors said. He has since pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud charge, according to officials.
Now Richards, 51, of Brunswick, has been sentenced to two years and six months in prison and must repay $422,168 to Glynn County, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia announced in a Sept. 9 news release.
His defense attorney, Scott G. Reddock, didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Sept. 10.
Richards’ public works position allowed him access to the company’s billing system and the county’s cards because he was in charge of coding and reconciling purchases made with the cards, prosecutors said. He had worked for the county since 2010.
He mostly used the money he stole from Glenn County to buy scratch-off cards and lottery tickets, Reddock wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“Richards believes this uncontrolled gambling was a means of coping with PTSD caused by past abuse and war-related trauma, exacerbated by a succession of personal tragedies….” the sentencing memorandum says in part.
Reddock argued in support of a lesser sentence, one year and six months in prison, for Richards, the sentencing memorandum shows.
“Taxpayers rightly expect employees of their government agencies to handle public money responsibly,” U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg said in a statement. “William Richards did the opposite by defrauding taxpayers and enriching himself at their expense, and he is being held accountable for his crime.”
Glynn County didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Sept. 10.
Richards’ prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Employee steals $400,000 from county, buys lottery tickets, feds say. He gets prison."
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