Posted on 06/17/2007 5:08:25 PM PDT by fella
Bank account raised red flag, led to county official’s arrest BY KRISTIN NETTERSTROM AND VAN JENSEN
Posted on Sunday, June 17, 2007
Two months ago, friends wished Ron Quillin good luck as he left Pulaski County to become chief financial officer for Medicaid in the state. A coworker with whom Quillin frequently sang at county functions serenaded him with a tear-ridden “Wind Beneath My Wings,” Bette Midler’s song famous for the lyrics, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero.”
In that same fourth-floor Quorum Court meeting room last week, Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay announced Quillin’s arrest on 16 theft of property charges, two fraud charges and one abuse of office charge. Holladay said Quillin stole $ 42, 000 from the county, for which he’d worked 13 years.
For many of those closest to Quillin during his rise through county government — from a contract for trapping beavers to having control of the county’s finances — his arrest came as a surprise. Quillin was described as friendly, disarming and trustworthy, and as computer savvy and ambitious.
“I considered Ron a really good friend, and he was my boss,” said Stephanie Creed, the county’s assistant comptroller who discovered the irregularities that led to Quillin’s arrest.
“It’s very shocking and disheartening,” Creed said. “Those of us who are honest and doing our jobs are paying the price.”
Quillin’s attorney, public defender Lloyd Warford, said his client admits to the charges and is trying to raise money to make restitution.
Creed and Quillin shared control of a bank account for the County Finance Officers’ Association, a statewide comptrollers group. Quillin, who was Pulaski County comptroller when the group formed, was the chairman. After the group stopped meeting more than two years ago, Creed said she repeatedly asked Quillin to close the account at a Little Rock branch of Bank of the Ozarks.
When Quillin left county employment, Creed closed the account. That’s when she found “unfamiliar activity” in the account history.
Creed and new comptroller Mike Hutchens, another member of the defunct group, traced those activities back to checks from 911 taxes, rebates, and vendors of snack and soda machines that should’ve gone to the county.
Just after Quillin’s arrest, County Judge Buddy Villines said Quillin was able to steal from the county because he was in “a position of trust,” and he had “knowledge and intent.” Villines said it was inevitable that Quillin would be caught because of safeguards within the county’s finance procedures. But, according to Creed, the missing checks became known only because of the outside fund and Quillin’s failure to close it. After Creed closed the account, Quillin contacted her the morning of June 4, and she arranged to meet him at the bank. Deputies were waiting for him.
QUICK ASCENSION With a bachelor’s degree in hand from Henderson State University, Quillin took on various accounting jobs — two years at Hudson Foods in the 1980 s and three months at Nevada County Hospital in 1991 — before he ended up working as a beaver trapper contracted to work for Pulaski County.
His application for a Pulaski County equipment operator job in May 1994 mentions a DWI arrest in 1988 but not a forgery conviction the same year that came to light last week.
Despite limited experience with large mowers, Quillin joined the county payroll as an equipment operator, making $ 12, 713 a year. He rose quickly.
“It was like he could move the earth,” said Temperlene Smith, Pulaski County’s human resources director who remembers Quillin’s ease in ascending the county hierarchy.
In six months, Quillin became an engineering aide, developing a computer program to track employee sick leave and payroll records. In a year’s time, he was making $ 23, 654 and overseeing accounting and budgets for a grant in Juvenile Services. His knowledge of computers made him indispensable.
“They didn’t have anybody who could turn them on and work on them and do things because it was the beginning for Pulaski County at the time,” said Walter “Sonny” Simpson, the county’s director of administrative services in the 1990 s.
Simpson, who retired in 2000, said he took notice of Quillin, who he remembered trying to improve himself through extra classes.
“If you have somebody who is not skilled in a particular field but is working to try to gain those skills, my position was paying particular attention to those people and helping them through that,” said Simpson, who ultimately hired Quillin as the county’s acting comptroller. Once he became comptroller, Quillin received $ 1, 100 from the county’s employee tuition assistance program to take classes at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and to attend two training seminars related to the county’s financial software program, provided by St. Louis-based Government e-Management Solutions. It’s the same program Quillin is now accused of cheating by embezzling vending machine revenue that supports it.
TRIPS TO ST. LOUIS Starting in 2005, Quillin’s involvement with Government e-Management Solutions intensified.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Democrat-Gazette obtained records from Jan. 1, 2005, until the termination of his employment with the county. An examination of those revealed that he charged travel expenses for 20 trips to St. Louis or the surrounding area to his county card.
Some of those trips were for Government e-Management Solutions conferences, according to itineraries. Throughout 2005, the county was implementing new financial software.
But 15 of Quillin’s trips came during the 16 months from January 2006 to April 2007, after the software was installed. Investigators said the theft of county funds that Quillin is accused of began in January 2006.
While Quillin paid for at least 10 of his trips to St. Louis that were charged on the county’s credit card, at least twice he went at the county’s expense without an official itinerary. One of those travel records contains a notation, “No itinerary, per Ron Quillin.”
Villines said he questioned Quillin after Creed went to him saying her boss was writing a lot of checks to the county to reimburse expenses made on the county’s purchasing cards.
Quillin assured Villines that he was traveling to serve on an advisory board of Government e-Management Solutions and the company was reimbursing him, Villines said. The county judge allowed him to serve on the board and a related user group as long as the county wasn’t paying his travel expenses.
Quillin, who is married, admitted to having an affair with a female employee of the company, Warford said Friday.
After a June 5 Freedom of Information Act request, Pulaski County provided the Democrat-Gazette with a disk containing business-related e-mails sent and received by Quillin, but county government employees later indicated that the county had withheld personal e-mails.
County Attorney Karla Burnett said the withheld electronic files included highly graphic and personal material and did not constitute public records.
On Thursday, the Democrat-Gazette filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against the county and Burnett, stating that the electronic files are being withheld illegally and citing Arkansas Code 25-19-103 and 25-19-105. Later the same day, the county filed a motion to dismiss.
A hearing was set for Thursday. Circuit Judge Alice Gray, who had set the hearing, recused herself from the case Friday, and it was reassigned to Judge Mary Spencer McGowan.
The newspaper also requested information from the state Department of Health and Human Services, which released all e-mails sent and received by Quillin. The hundreds of e-mails included dozens of personal notes between Quillin and a female employee of Government e-Management Solutions.
Those e-mails factored in Quillin being fired by the state shortly after his arrest, said Julie Munsell, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Hi Sexxee Lover !” begins one of those e-mails, sent from Quillin’s account the day before his arrest. “I just can’t get enough of making love to you and feeling your sensual body against mine !” it continues.
A series of e-mails includes electronic reservations for a Fort Worth hotel room on May 30, when the investigation of Quillin was gaining steam. Exchanges between the accounts of Quillin and the Government e-Management Solutions employee describe a planned meeting. “Hmmm... make up sex... I still remember !” states one note from the female employee’s account. “It doesn’t matter, the sex with you is always mind blowing,” comes the response from Quillin’s account.
CHANGES AHEAD In the wake of Quillin’s arrest, county officials are changing their hiring practices and combing county finances to determine the depth of the thefts. Quorum Court members are following up on Villines’ executive order with an ordinance to require background checks for any employee who has access to county money. Some departments, such as the treasurer and tax collector’s office, already perform background checks. Villines’ order came about after county officials learned of Quillin’s forgery conviction. Villines also ordered an audit of the 911 fund last week, saying he wanted to make sure there weren’t more checks that bypassed county coffers. The 911 fund, which accumulates from taxes telephone companies charge for 911 services, are part of the $ 42, 000 Quillin is accused of taking.
Hutchens is also seeking an audit of county credit card statements, a request the Quorum Court will take up at its next meeting.
“I have a gut feeling right now there’s going to be an aftershock after the earthquake,” said Justice of the Peace Charles Roberson.
Quillin, who is married, admitted to having an affair with a female employee of the company, Warford said Friday.
Kept his original job too...
That was my full time occupation once. Then I got married and she made me quit.
L
Yeah, the beaver skinned me too.
bump
So the eager beaver (!) who was doing all the work was also stealing all the money, and the rest of the lazy-assed government employees couldn’t care less as long as somebody was doing all their work for them. Gee, I wonder if that’s ever happened before?
Wonder what those beaver pelts smelled like?
Well, our married head coach has over 2000 cell phone contacts with a divorced blond newreader in a three month span on a university phone and it is once again...nothing to see, move on.
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