Pennsylvania Parking Officer Steals Money To Buy Birthday Cakes
If you ever wondered what your money goes towards when pay for meter parking, you may not have to worry much longer if you live in the state of Pennsylvania.
Who And Why They Stole The Money
45-year-old Sekela Coles is the director of parking enforcement for a town in Pennsylvania. The town was located in Upper Darby, according to NBC10 Philadelphia. Well, she was the director of parking enforcement. That was until she was caught stealing from the parking meters that she and her department were in charge of.
Sekela would have her employees turn in all the coins that they collected from the meters. She would then have another coworker take those coins and convert them into cash. Coles would then keep that cash in her desk at work. A portion of the cash collected to be used as her own petty cash.
She would take that stolen petty cash and use it to cover the costs of food, birthday cakes, and even the office parties. She’d even use it for restaurant trips for her and her staff, when they planned outings for lunch. She was even busted for voiding parking tickets that family members would receiving.
How Was She Punished?
After months of investigating Sekela, she was eventually charged with theft and receiving stolen property…among other things. In all, officials figured out that Coles stole almost $4,300. Of that $4,300, she returned $2,000 of it. As of now, court documents show that the charges agains Sekela Coles have been filed yesterday. Coles is awaiting her preliminary hearing and is currently out of her position and placed on administrative leave. We’re assuming that will all change once she is convicted of her crimes in court. Let’s just hope that the person who replaces her has a better sense of judgement and will do the right thing with the money collected from the towns parking meters.
We have more on this story in today’s Other News!
