Feds Charge Former Center Township Trustee's CFO With Stealing More Than $340,000

The former chief financial officer for the Center Township Trustee's Office in Marion County for more than a decade, Alan Mizen, has been charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis with stealing more than $340,000 from the township through an elaborate computer-generated invoice scheme to make it appear that payments being made to him were actually being made to the Indiana State Treasurer's Office. The IBJ has more details on how the scheme worked:

The complaint alleges that Mizen set up an account with PNC Bank and deposited a check in the amount of $343,541.08 drawn from public funds. He then used the computerized accounting system at the Center Township office to create a false invoice indicating that he had written the check to the “Treasurer of State,” the complaint said.

Mizen proceeded to transfer the funds he deposited into personal accounts, using $200,000 to help purchase a $500,000 home in Zionsville, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He also purchased a 2009 Toyota Tacoma pickup, spent $14,274.89 to help fund his child’s college education and bought a diamond necklace and diamond ring totaling $8,900 during a trip to the Cayman Islands, the complaint said.

The pickup and jewelry has been seized, and a notice filed with Boone County officials prohibiting him from transferring his interest in the home until the criminal case is resolved.

More than $385,000 has been recovered from an investment account to repay the trustee’s office, said Brad Blackington, a senior lawyer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, who is prosecuting the case.

Blackington said the office doubts that anyone else at the trustee’s office is involved in the theft.

A State Board of Accounts' audit report issued more than two years ago first raised questions about whether Mizen and other township employees had been overpaid. Former Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer, who ran the office at the time the theft began, took a swipe at the auditors in a response he made concerning their findings at the time. Drummer, who is now a lobbyist for Ice Miller, suggested that the State Board of Accounts was being "overzealous" and implied that the agency was being vindictive for hiring Mizen away from its office to work for his office. As this blog reported on his response at the time:

"Generally, I applaud the SBOA for working for working around the state to reduce the rampant nepotism and self-dealing that occurs in some local governments," Drummer wrote. But he then went on to complain that he thought the agency had a tendency to abuse its authority "by overzealous prosecution of matters." Drummer essentially pleaded ignorance to all of the report's finding, claiming that he didn't have access to any of the documents necessary to respond to them. Ironically, Drummer said he hired Mizen away from the SBOA to make sure that his office's finances were "handled by someone expert in SBOA rules and processes." Drummer then grew very defensive, worrying that he might be held strictly liable for potential errors that he . . . could not reasonably detect." He then worried about the report's impact on his reputation. "In the public's view, my reputation will be tarnished by the mere publication of this report." Apparently Drummer is oblivious to his poor reputation that he accumulated during his tenure as Center Township Trustee. He continued, "The SBOA's report belies these efforts and does a disservice to both myself and many others who worked tirelessly to provide a valuable  service to the public."

The federal theft and embezzlement charges with which Mizen is charged carry a potential penalty of up to 10 years in prison according to the IBJ. News reports don't indicate whether there is any possibility of others being charged.