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Santa Rosa Fireman Arrested For Financial Theft
May 6, 2016
A former Pace fireman has been arrested on multiple felony charges for allegedly stealing from his department.
Lee Pitts, 53, was arrested after a lengthy investigation conducted by the State Attorney’s Office into questionable business activities at the Pace Fire and Rescue Department. At the time of the charged offenses, Pitts was the department’s financial officer.
Pitt was charged with one count of organized fraud of property valued at less than $20,000, two counts of grand theft of property valued at $300 or more but less than $5,000 and 43 misdemeanor counts of petit theft from his former employer, the Pace Fire and Rescue Department.
If convicted, Pitts faces up to 15 years in state prison.
Pitts was accused of making non-department purchases on his Pace Fire and Rescue Department credit card, including 41 purchases of video games from Google ranging from 99 cents to $99.99, with the majority of the purchases being $99.99. Pitts told investigators that that one of his children must have used the PFRD credit card stored in his phone to make the Google purchases.
Prosecutors said there were additional questionable charges, including $250.85 to Greyhound, $636.48 to Ocean 6 for meat while his son was a salesman for the company, $72.01 to Tilly’s in Cordova Mall, and $366.14 to Sam’s Club for a Serta air bed.
Pitts was also accused of paying himself for 539.25 hours of paid time off, in excess of the 80 hours allowed per year for $5,288.30 of unauthorized compensation.
Comments
7 Responses to “Santa Rosa Fireman Arrested For Financial Theft”
I did not read one purchase that indicated need. A good reputation once lost is lost forever. People forget the good you do but they will always remember your bad.
Well…….no doubt another trusted public servant has succumbed to lying,cheating,stealing etc. AND been caught red handed ! But where are the checks and balances to prevent such ? Why can’t our PTB ever learn to ” trust but verify ” ? Are they impervious to the past ? Or are they not concerned because it’s not their $$$$. All of government from Federal to local should endorse Ronald Reagans ” trust but verify ” agenda.
He will probably go to jail because he is a man, but this is not worse than stealing kids lunch money.
No jail time will be served. The lady who stole from kids lunch account got probation. .They need to put them in jail.
He is not the first one to dip his hands in the cookie jar where the culprit is in some kind of authority and will not be the last but to go so far as to blame it on one of his kids is going beyond low. It is certain the evidence is there for him to be arrested and surely convicted and needs to serve the max time for his crime plus more for abusing his so-called authority. I guess he thought he was smart enough he could falsify the books good enough it could not be found through an audit but I guess he just wasn’t smart enough–like many in similar positions. JUST US FOR ALL. GETERDONE.
I didn’t do it your honor…….blame blame blame
How low to even throw your kids under the bus with it. Be a man and own up to it bud. At 53 years old it would seem you’d know how to be a man by now. I hope they give you 10+ just for accusing your kids.