🚀 go-pugleaf

Seven Bay Bridge Toll-Takers Charged With Theft 

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 6, 2001 ; Page B02 

It was a relatively simple strategy that state prosecutors 
allege seven Bay Bridge toll collectors used to skim nearly 
$2,000 from the till last year and pocket the money.

By incorrectly recording on their registers the type of vehicle 
that stopped at their booth and the amount of the toll, collectors 
each diverted from $40 to almost $600 from the collection basket 
between July and December 2000, according to state prosecutors. 

For that, the seven have been charged with forgery, making false 
entries in public documents and theft. All have also been 
suspended from their jobs. 

"The loss of money in these seven cases is almost secondary in 
importance to abuse of the public trust," Maryland Attorney 
General J. Joseph Curan Jr. said in a statement. "We will vigorously
prosecute state employees like these who we believe falsified state
documents to cover the tracks of their crimes."

Because the collectors' tally sheets all looked proper at the 
end of the day and their receipts matched the vehicles they 
recorded, the scheme might have continued had it not been for a 
tipster within the Maryland Transportation Authority, prosecutors 
said. 

After installing hidden surveillance cameras in booths and 
recording toll collectors during different shifts, investigators 
found that several were ringing up the wrong vehicle and 
corresponding toll into their register, collecting the fee 
and pocketing the difference. 

For example, after five cars -- each paying a $2.50 toll -- went 
through and paid $12.50 total, the collector might ring them up 
as one truck -- a $10 toll -- and keep the $2.50 difference.

Officials at the transportation authority declined to discuss 
the matter, other than to confirm that the seven toll collectors 
had worked for the authority from three to 15 years and that all 
had been suspended without pay. Bay Bridge toll collectors make 
from $20,579 to $34,710 a year, said Lori Vidil, a spokeswoman for the
authority.

Almost 24 million vehicles cross the Bay Bridge each year. 
About $30 million in tolls was collected last year, she said. 

The seven toll collectors charged were identified by Curran as 
Joselyn April Haines, 35, of Queenstown, Md.; Lewis Chester 
Bell, 40, of Baltimore; Mary Beaudette Fitzgerald, 34, of Bowie; 
Theresa Jo Allen, 35, of Glen Burnie; Shenita Rena Hynson, 34, of 
Cordova, Md.; and Dorothy Tobat Harding, 52, and Sharon Ann 
Walker, 38, both of Federalsburg, Md.

All were free yesterday after posting various bonds in Anne 
Arundel County District Court, officials said.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31024-2001Feb5.html
-- 
(ken)

------------------------------------------

To respond to this place (-) between x and d.


        Because e-mail can be altered electronically,
        the integrity of this communication cannot be guaranteed.
	(Version 1.91)