This Man Stole From His Own Town And The People For 13 Years

For thirteen years, the mayor of a small New York village used the town's ATM card as his personal checking account. He withdrew $23,500 to pay his mortgage, cover personal bills, and keep his own bank account from collapsing into overdraft fees—nearly $7,000 worth of them. When forensic auditors finally traced 1,400 transactions to a single cardholder, the mayor sat down in an interrogation room and explained, calmly and almost casually, that he had been "borrowing" from the village and that he always intended to pay it back.

The Confession

The interrogation transcript, featured in this episode of True Crime Stories, captures a remarkable exchange. The mayor, identified as the village's leader since 2011, does not deny the theft. When the investigator tells him that auditors found $23,500 in ATM withdrawals from the village account, he admits: "Most of the money was used for myself." He used it to pay his mortgage. He used it to cover personal bills after his daughter was seriously injured and he fell behind on his own finances. "I just couldn't lose my house," he says. "I didn't want to do anything else."

The investigator presses: "Is that your money to use for personal bills?" The mayor responds, "Probably not."