State v. McGhee

523 N.E.2d 864, 37 Ohio App. 3d 54, 1987 Ohio App. LEXIS 10570
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 7, 1987
Docket51825 and 51826
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 523 N.E.2d 864 (State v. McGhee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. McGhee, 523 N.E.2d 864, 37 Ohio App. 3d 54, 1987 Ohio App. LEXIS 10570 (Ohio Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

Ann McManamon, J.

During the summer of 1984, the city of Cleveland fell victim to the theft of approximately $45,000 from project CLEAN, a summer youth employment program. Following a lengthy investigation, Darryl Williams, a CLEAN employee, was arrested in connection with the thefts. Williams implicated his supervisor at CLEAN, the defendant Edward McGhee.

In case No. 198899, McGhee was charged with one count of grand theft (R.C. 2913.02) with prior theft and violence specifications, one count of tampering with records (R.C. 2913.42) with a violence specification, sixteen counts of forgery (R.C. 2913.31) and sixteen counts of uttering (R.C. 2913.31). In case No. 198035, McGhee was charged with one count of theft in office (R.C. 2921.41) with a violence specification. A bench trial ensued on both cases and McGhee was convicted of all counts. In a delayed appeal, McGhee challenges these convictions, raising ten assignments of error. 1

Project CLEAN, a program funded by the city and implemented through the Cleveland Board of Education, was designed to provide summer employment for youths aged eighteen to twenty-one. As vacant lots coordinator, McGhee’s duties included the supervision of all the youths employed to clean various vacant lots scattered throughout the city. Darryl Williams served directly under McGhee as a work-site monitor. Both men worked out of CLEAN’s Platt Avenue office. This office served as a conduit through which all employee time sheets and termination papers passed on their way to the board of education payroll department.

According to Williams, McGhee approached him at the beginning of the 1984 summer session with a plan to *55 divert CLEAN funds to their own use by taking advantage of their control over the employee time sheets. Pursuant to CLEAN regulations, field supervisors submitted employee time sheets every two weeks to the Platt Avenue office. If an employee quit or had three unexcused absences a field supervisor would write “terminated” across the time sheet. Williams testified that he and McGhee devised a plan whereby termination information was withheld from the payroll department and thus the department continued to issue checks to these employees. The “terminated” employees were transferred to the 49th Street work crew under the control of “Thomas Bradley,” a fictitious supervisor. Eventually twenty-one ghost employees were added to the 49th Street crew.

It is undisputed that during the summer, McGhee, without the permission of his CLEAN supervisor, changed the rules governing the submission of the time sheets. He instructed the field supervisors to turn the sheets in on a daily basis and to refrain from writing “terminated” on them. According to Williams, McGhee implemented this change to facilitate the scam by allowing them to monitor employee absences and thus “transfer” these employees to the 49th Street crew sooner. He further averred that by instructing the supervisors not to write “terminated” on the time sheets, these same forms could be submitted to the payroll department in exchange for the ghost-employee checks.

At the end of each two-week pay period, Williams was responsible for submitting the time sheets to the payroll department. Williams testified that a few days before the time sheets were due he would turn the sheets of the ghost employees over to McGhee or Sell Jefferson, McGhee’s business partner and a former CLEAN employee. According to Williams, the sheets were returned to him with the hours “worked” by each ghost employee filled in. Williams then wrote “Tom Bradley” on the signature line and turned the sheets in to payroll in exchange for new preprinted time sheets for the next pay period.

CLEAN policy required that its employees personally pick up their paychecks, and required that they provide identification before release of the checks. However, one exception to this rule developed. On the pretext that it was inconvenient for the 49th Street workers to retrieve their checks, Williams was permitted to sign for them and purportedly to deliver them to these employees. Williams testified that upon receipt of the checks he would pull those belonging to the ghost employees before delivering checks to the legitimate 49th Street employees.

According to Williams, he gave the remaining checks to either McGhee or Jefferson. Williams averred that a couple of days later McGhee would pay him $50 in cash per check for the first thirteen checks. The balance of the money ostensibly owed to Williams was invested by McGhee in his business, TST Productions, on Williams’s behalf. The state introduced a notebook kept by Williams detailing the amounts invested in McGhee’s company.

It is undisputed that the ghost-employee checks were forged and deposited in the bank accounts of Jacques Bradley, Andrew Hybian and Eddie Harris. Sandra Ingram and Angenette Cross, tellers at the Shaker Square branch of Broadview Savings and Loan, testified that between July 28 and September 21, 1984, Bradley deposited approximately fifty CLEAN payroll checks in his account. Ingram explained that the checks were endorsed in blank by the payees and by *56 Jacques Bradley before presentation at the bank. Both tellers further testified that McGhee accompanied Jacques Bradley to the bank on at least two occasions.

The scam was uncovered in the fall of 1984 when Herbert Watson confronted CLEAN officials concerning the denial of his workers’ compensation claim. Watson, who broke his leg on August 17 while working for CLEAN, was denied benefits because records indicated that he was still receiving a CLEAN paycheck. A review of Watson’s file revealed that, after his injury, he had been transferred to Thomas Bradley’s 49th Street crew. Further investigation lead to the discovery that Thomas Bradley did not exist and to the twenty other ghost employees, who included McGhee’s brother-in-law and a musician sometimes employed by McGhee at TST Productions.

McGhee, Jefferson and Williams were indicted in April 1985. A search of Jefferson’s home uncovered the stubs originally attached to the ghost-employee checks. Police also confiscated Andrew Hybian’s bank records which included a number of checks written to Jefferson and one $700 check written to McGhee.

Shortly after McGhee’s arrest, he telephoned Christopher Shirley, a friend of Williams. Shirley testified that McGhee said he had a plan “to get out of this” and told Shirley to deliver this message to Williams. The three men subsequently met to discuss McGhee’s plan. According to both Williams and Shirley, McGhee detailed a plan whereby Williams would retract his statement implicating McGhee and McGhee would sue the Plain Dealer, the city of Cleveland and the Cleveland Police Department for millions of dollars. In exchange for Williams’s release, McGhee would “settle for a couple thousand dollars.”

In his defense, McGhee denied any knowledge of the payroll scam. He testified that he had an aversion to paperwork and allowed Williams to oversee the time sheets independently. McGhee admitted to implementing changes in the rules governing the submission of time sheets but claimed the changes were needed because field supervisors were terminating employees inappropriately. Although he did not deny the meeting with Williams and Shirley, he averred that he only wanted to find out why Williams had implicated him.

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Bluebook (online)
523 N.E.2d 864, 37 Ohio App. 3d 54, 1987 Ohio App. LEXIS 10570, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mcghee-ohioctapp-1987.