September 24, 2022
By: Dwayne Page
A DeKalb County Landfill employee has been terminated and charged with theft and fraudulent use of a debit card for allegedly using a county government fuel card for personal use. The theft allegedly occurred multiple times from June 21, 2021 to September 11, 2022 totaling almost $3,000.
54-year-old Mark Randall (Truck) Robinson of Dry Creek Road, Smithville will be in General Sessions Court October 6 on charges of theft of property over $2,500 and fraudulent use of a debit card. He is under an $8,500 bond. The case was investigated by the Smithville Police Department. Robinson was charged this morning (Friday) and arrived at the Sheriff’s Department for booking accompanied by police officers.
According to the arrest warrant, “Mark Robinson did use the DeKalb County Government gas card to fill his personal vehicle with gasoline. Mr. Robinson was employed by the DeKalb County landfill. Mr Robinson used the card multiple times. The first offense was on June 21, 2021 to the last offense September 11, 2022. The total amount of gasoline taken was $2,962.66. Mr. Robinson did not have consent to use the gas card for personal use. This offense did occur in Smithville,” the warrant stated.
County Mayor Matt Adcock said that when he learned something was amiss he contacted the Smithville Police Department to conduct an investigation.
“It came to my attention on a fuel expense report recently that there were (fuel) charges made after hours. I thought that to be suspicious so I contacted the Smithville Police Department, and they sent over an officer who filled out a police report. Through that investigation I was later notified by the Smithville Police Department that this (county) employee was Mark Robinson,” said County Mayor Adcock.
According to Adcock, Robinson allegedly used a county fuel card with a PIN number which had been assigned to a former landfill employee, who had quit work after the August election.
“Our county fuel cards are kept in the glove box of the vehicle (used by the employees). Each county employee has his own PIN number that they can use for that card. That’s how we track which employee is making transactions on that card. He (Robinson) was caught using the PIN number of the former employee,” Adcock continued.
“When we noticed on the expense report that the fuel transactions on this card were occurring after hours and with the PIN number issued to the former employee we knew something was wrong,” said County Mayor Adcock.
Video evidence apparently confirmed that Robinson was the person making the transactions.
After the police investigation was complete, Adcock said he terminated Robinson.
“The incident was also reported to the state comptroller’s office which began an audit stemming from the case. “By state law, I had to notify the state comptroller within five days of the notice of fraud and then they come and audit us. They conducted the audit and had the same finding which will be on our annual audit report,” said Adcock.
To guard against this from possibly happening again by others, Adcock said he plans to work with the county attorney and county commission to develop a uniform policy for fuel card use as recommended by the state comptroller. Such a policy would most likely specify that the fuel cards are to remain in the county vehicles, that the employees only use the PIN numbers assigned to them for specific vehicles, and that the mileage be recorded with each use. Those who violate such a policy would be terminated.