Gregory A. White, United States Attorney for the Northern
District of Ohio, together with C. Frank Figliuzzi, Special Agent in Charge
of the Cleveland Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ronny
J. Shawber, Crawford County Sheriff, Stanley Flegm, Crawford County Prosecutor,
and Robert Neff, City of Bucyrus Law Director, announced today that Bridget
R. Fuller, 33, of Bucyrus, Ohio, pleaded guilty to all four counts of an
Indictment charging her with stealing money from a federal program. Fuller
is a former employee of the City of Bucyrus Water Department.
During a hearing before
the Honorable Donald C. Nugent, Fuller admitted that she stole $89,631.26
from the Bucyrus Water Department and then destroyed and falsified Water
Department records to hide her theft. After Fuller stole the customers’ payments, she posted credits to customers’ accounts
allegedly to correct meter reading errors or other errors. In fact, no
error had occurred in the customers’ billing and the customers had
not received notice of any credit. Rather, customers had paid their bills
in full. By posting unwarranted credits to customers’ accounts in
the amount Fuller stole, customers’ invoices for the following month
would not reflect an outstanding balance. Therefore, customers would not
realize that their payments had not been properly posted to their accounts.
Fuller admitted that she destroyed Water Department documents which prevented
her colleagues who audited the daily records from noticing the cash shortage.
United States Attorney
Gregory White said this of today’s guilty
plea, “This case has been possible because of the cooperation and
partnerships amongst the various law enforcement agencies dedicated to
rooting out public corruption in this District. I would like to specifically
compliment the work of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office to uncover
Bridget Fuller’s fraud upon the citizens of Bucyrus.”
Fuller will be sentenced
by Judge Nugent on January 29, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. Fuller’s sentence will be determined by the Court under the
Federal Sentencing Guidelines which depend upon a number of factors unique
to each case, including the Defendant’s prior criminal record, if
any, her role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation.
In all cases the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in
most cases it will be less than the maximum. The maximum potential penalties
for this offense, are ten years imprisonment, a $250,000.00 fine and three
years of supervised release following any period of incarceration per count
of conviction.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Antoinette
Thomas Bacon.
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