THREE THEFT RELATED CASES INDICTED

Posted on 12/20/2013

Defendant: Trixie Kay Belew, Syndon Cunningham, Darryl Ferguson, David Phillips, Sean Wolfe

Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announces that the Franklin County Grand Jury has returned three theft related indictments.  O’Brien said “These employees were trusted employees who abused their positions for their own personal gain.”

Trixie Kay Belew has been indicted for one count (F-3) Theft in Office, one count (F-3) Tampering With Records, and five counts (F-5) Forgery, for a total of seven counts.   Belew was the accounts payable manager for South Western City Schools and was responsible for entering the mileage amount for the teachers that traveled in the school district and printing checks for their mileage reimbursement.  From 2009 through 2012 Belew printed 57 checks, 52 of which had been cashed and cleared the bank for a total of $38,931.71.

Syndon G. Cunningham, Darryl G. Ferguson, and David L. Phillips have been indicted for one count (F-3) Theft, two counts (F-3) Forgery, and four counts (F-3) Money Laundering, for a total of seven counts.  Between March 27 and April 22, 2013, the three stole $177,398.82 from the estate of a deceased Chase Bank customer.  Cunningham and Phillips were both Chase Bank employees.  Ferguson was an acquaintance of Phillips.  The trio acted together to forge a document showing Ferguson to be the executor of the estate of Edmund and Virginia Fairbanks.  The document was used to close out the Chase account and to open an account with Huntington Bank in the name of the Edmund Fairbanks Estate with Ferguson the executor and signer on this account.  Days later the new account was liquidated by withdrawing the funds in the form of four cashier’s checks.

 Sean C. Wolfe has been indicted for one count (F-4) Theft, one count (F-3) Tampering with Records, two counts (F-5) Forgery, and one count (F-4) Telecommunications Fraud, for a total of five counts.  Between November 2011 and March 2013, Wolfe stole $76,570.77 from The Reserve at Sharon Woods, and apartment complex.  Wolfe was employed with The Reserves as the Community Manager.  Part of his responsibilities included collecting resident rent payments and posting the payments to the resident accts.  Instead he collected the fees and deposited them into his personal account.