A St. Paul man has been charged with swindling $64,800 over two years while working as a Ramsey County employee.
The Dakota County attorney’s office, which is handling the case to avoid a conflict of interest in Ramsey County, announced Friday that Paul Richard Scharf, 42, has been charged with eight counts of theft by swindle and eight counts of embezzlement of public funds, all felony charges.
Scharf, a former employee of Ramsey County, would use his work credit card to purchase items. He would return the items for store credit and then sell that credit, similar to a gift card, online at a discounted price.
“Any theft of government funds is a serious crime which victimizes not only the governmental agency but also all of its taxpayers,” said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom.
The thefts took place over two years, spanning July 2017 to August 2019. Authorities didn’t detail Scharf’s employment with Ramsey County.
The authorities learned of the theft in May 2019 when Menards contacted the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension regarding Merchandise Credit Checks (MCCs) being sold on eBay that were associated with purchases that had been made using a Ramsey County tax-exempt number.
The retailer explained that when merchandise is returned to the store, the value can be placed on an MCC, which can then be used to purchase other items in the store later. Menards initially found 30 of these MCCs related to the Ramsey County number.
Scharf also used the county’s tax-exempt ID number for the purchases.
BCA agents learned that other individuals had been observed making some of the returns. They interviewed two of those individuals who admitted to making the returns at Scharf’s request and gave him the MCCs they had received.
A search of their phones revealed more than 60 texts regarding the sale or trade of MCCs at 50 percent of their face value, often on eBay.
Further investigation showed about 123 completed eBay auctions between October 2017 and July 2019 for Menards MCCs. All of the auctions had been conducted by the two individuals questioned in the case, and all of the MCCs were issued on returns from purchases made on Scharf’s county credit card.
Agents noted that sometimes it was only minutes between the original purchase and the subsequent return.
A total of 265 MCCs associated with alleged illegal transactions involving Scharf’s county credit card totaling over $53,500 took place during that time.
Agents found that Scharf was also misusing his county card at Target.
When questioned, Scharf admitted he was employed by Ramsey County, had been issued a county credit card and acknowledged it was not allowed to be used for personal expenses. He identified individuals who would help him out sometimes.
Scharf clamed any MCCs he had gotten from returns had been used to make later purchases on behalf of the county. However, Ramsey County was unable to locate a large number of tools and equipment that had been purchased using Scharf’s county-issued credit card.
Scharf is being summoned to court and will make his first appearance in the next several weeks.
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December 06, 2020 at 04:19AM
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Former Ramsey County employee charged with using work credit card to embezzle - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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