Records show many of the checks — drawn from a pot of money set aside for legal settlements — weren’t mailed, but instead were collected by Christen Turner, a former Dayton law department employee who was indicted in September on charges that she worked with Richards and others to steal the money, which eventually totaled about $365,000.
Richards said Turner approached her in 2009 “to get it going.” Turner allegedly issued 146 checks from 2009 through 2013.
Richards, 39, of Beavercreek, and Turner, 39, of Dayton, are two of nine people charged in the case so far. Turner is in the Montgomery County Jail while Richards, who faces less serious charges, was released on her own recognizance.
Richards said she and Turner were in constant fear they would get caught, and had planned on stopping before the scheme unraveled.
“The thought was there, I can tell you,” Richards said.
She wouldn’t say where she spent the money.
Richards was charged with one count each of grand theft over $7,500, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and complicity to commit grand theft. She faces up to 11 years in prison.
Two others face those same charges, while another five are charged with various felonies in connection with the case. Twenty-five people are being screened for diversion, which is a county program for first-time offenders that agrees to drop charges if they admit guilt and pay the money back.
“The city should be able to get their money back from those people,” said Greg Flannagan, spokesman for the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.
Some of those people were recruited by Richards, according to her attorney Jeremiah Denslow. For every $2,500 check, Turner and Richards would get $1,000 and the other person would get $500. Turner would get half of every check split two ways.
“Shannon was a major participant, there’s no disputing that, but she wasn’t the biggest,” Denslow said. “(Turner) was clearly the primary beneficiary.”
Denslow acknowledged that Richards spent the money but says she wants to pay it back. She is willing to accept a two-year prison sentence in exchange for complying with the investigation, he said.
“You talk about somebody that has no criminal record. She’s college educated, she’s got kids,” he said. “Other than this unfortunate set of circumstances, this thing she did, she was a solid person, a good mother and employee.”
The I-Team obtained copies of all of the payments authorized by Turner, who police say was the only city employee involved in the scheme. The records show checks were issued to the same people for up to four years in a row, all for $2,500 — the maximum amount Turner could authorize on her own.
Some years, payments went to several people at the same address less than two months apart. Checks went to husbands and wives, brothers, even parents and children, annually for four years.
The payments came from the city’s moral obligation fund, which is a half million dollars the city sets aside every year to pay legal settlements and small property damage claims.
The city law director can authorize payments of up to $2,500. The authority to requisition checks for these payments was delegated to Turner in 2009. Payments between $2,500 and $10,000 require city manager approval, while the city commission must approve any payments larger than $10,000.
The checks authorized by Turner included no actual claims. Many of the payments went through several layers of oversight — apparently without raising red flags. The deputy law director and finance director were among those signing off on the checks.
Large payments from the fund are relatively rare, according to an I-Team examination of city data. Of the 552 payments dating back through 2005 that were properly processed, only 53 were for $2,500 or more.
Dayton officials say they changed their policy and now payments require more signatures and are reviewed more often.
Turner is being held on a $200,000 bond. Prosecutors argued she is a flight risk because she could face up to 443 years in prison if sentenced consecutively on the charges against her: one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, one count of theft in office over $7,500 and 143 counts of tampering with government records.
The city’s law director during the four years that the thefts took place, John Danish, resigned from a job that paid him $121,180 on Oct. 1. He received $64,684 in severance pay.
City officials say he quit to move to Columbus with his wife, Rita McNeil Danish, who Gov. John Kasich appointed in July as a Franklin County Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court judge.
Danish had worked for the city since 1990 and served as law director since late 2009. He did not provide a written two-week notice or letter of resignation, according to city records.
“His resignation had nothing to do with the Turner investigation,” Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said Friday.
Meanwhile, one of the co-defendants in the case, Gregory Gibson, 27, of Dayton, pleaded guilty last week to the one theft count against him. City records show one $2,500 check written to someone by that name in 2011. He is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 13 and faces up to a year in prison.
Jamie Van Winkle, 29, of Dayton, has filed for help with drug and alcohol treatment in lieu of conviction on his theft charge. One check to that name was filed in 2010.
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