Michael Kaizar, a forensic accountant for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation said Thursday that suspended Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly’s actions weren’t just a case of “bad bookkeeping.”
Most of the funds handled by sheriff’s office employees were well documented, Kaizar said, but when it came to funds Kelly handled directly, there was no evidence to suggest that the money went anywhere but his own pockets.
Kaizar — the only witness to testify Thursday morning — said he was assigned to the task of looking into the Furtherance of Justice, cashbox and Law Enforcement Trust funds during BCI’s investigation toward the end of June 2013.
“Overall what I try to do is provide a financial picture (of the case),” Kaizar said.
He testified that those funds were particularly important because they were outside accounts — meaning the county auditor didn't oversee them, thus opening the door for a higher potential for abuse.
Kelly was the primary person making expenditures on these accounts, Kaizar said.
He said what first caught his eye was the overwhelming amount of restaurant expenditures taken out by Kelly.
Restaurant expenditures tend to be high if an individual is in sales or has a job that requires extensive overnight travel, Kaizar testified. This would not be the case for a public official, he said.
Prosecuting Attorney Melissa A. Schiffel showed the jury a slide prepared by Kaizar outlining various restaurant expenditures made by Kelly from November to December 2009.
There were eight expenditures in all, all taken out of the FOJ fund. On seven of these instances, a reason for the visit was not documented on the meal’s receipt, which is required for all transactions from the fund.
Kaizer also testified to Kelly’s use of money received from scrap sales in 2013. Of the $4,792 obtained, approximately $700 went into the county’s general fund and $1,122 went into the sheriff’s FOJ fund.
Nearly $3,000 was left unaccounted for.
The prosecution then asked Kaizer about Kelly’s use of funds to pay for confidential informants.
Kaizer said Kelly generally paid his confidential informants much more than other offices spent on such informants.
Most confidential informants receive between $20 and $50 for any given case.
A chart prepared by Kaiser showed one of Pat Kelly’s informants received an average of $186.
Kaizer also testified that the BCI obtained Kelly’s personal bank account information and said Kelly seemed to live well beyond his means, even with a bank account balance that often was negative.
Schiffel then asked him about his use of campaign funds during 2008 when Kelly first ran for Sheriff.
On his campaign finance report, Kelly reported $1,640 in total campaign contributions. The report also stated that there had been no withdrawals from the account to help pay for the campaign.
Kaizer’s investigation into Kelly’s campaign and personal account uncovered several transactions that he said seemed to indicate that Kelly had cashed campaign checks and pocketed the money or deposited the money into his own personal account.
Many of these transactions were not reported in his campaign finance report.
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