Former Columbus Packet owner Roger Larsen took the stand in municipal court Thursday, testifying that an ex-employee embezzled up to $22,167.70 in cash over a four-year period.
Aimee Houtman Shaw, the weekly paper”s advertising director at the time of the alleged thefts, was arrested Sept. 18 after Larsen accused her of taking the money from an in-house cash box since 2006.
Shaw, 40, of 158 Center Road, also exchanged advertising for services, Larsen testified. The evidence of those alleged crimes is still being uncovered, he added.
“It”s a big-time theft,” Larsen said after the hearing.
After listening to about an hour of testimony, Justice Court Judge Peggy Phillips ruled there was sufficient merit to Larsen”s case and sent it forward to the grand jury.
The grand jury will decide whether there is enough evidence to try the case in Circuit Court.
If convicted, Shaw could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail or a fine of up to $25,000, according to state statutes. She could also be ordered to pay restitution to Larsen.
Both Shaw and her attorney, George Mitchell of Eupora, declined to comment about the case following the hearing.
But during his cross examination of Larsen, Mitchell floated several possible defense strategies that could be used in a trial.
Mitchell fired a salvo of questions at Larsen about why he waited until September to file charges against his five-year employee when he uncovered the alleged thefts in May.
“Why did all this happen so late?” Larsen replied. “Because I hadn”t been looking at it.”
Larsen had let Shaw, his only employee at the time, “handle everything — all business,” he said. His suspicions were only aroused when he realized she hadn”t deposited the company”s cash in 13 months.
Since then Larsen”s accountants had compared four of the paper”s five receipts books — one had been lost — to deposits, uncovering the $22,167.70 discrepancy.
Mitchell went on to imply that Larsen could have used Shaw as a scapegoat to boost the paper”s gross revenue, which could have increase the sale price of the paper.
After editing and publishing The Packet for 18 years, Larsen sold the paper to local businessmen Justin Shelton and Colin Krieger in mid-June.
Larsen agreed that a theft would decrease the listed revenue, but said he knew about the thefts before the sale.
“(Shelton and Krieger) were well aware of my suspicions,” he added.
At Mitchell”s probing, Larsen said he had authorized attorney Jeff Smith to approach Shaw with an offer to drop charges if she paid back $10,000.
“The offer stood, which I regretted even making,” Larsen said.
Redirecting his testimony, Larsen said Shaw admitted to the crime when he confronted her.
“She just repeated that kind of thing: That she never realized it was so much,” Larsen said.
At the time, he continued, she said she took the money to pay for gas, among other personal uses, and moved the cash to make up for shortages in other accounts.
She told him then, Larsen said, that she would have to get a loan from her family to pay him back.
“She said she took the money,” he continued. “The question is, how much?”
Mitchell also argued that a bicycle injury could have damaged Larsen”s memory, resulting in his leaving the office door open to burglars or authorizing Shaw to make purchases for him with the cash.
Larsen, in turn, questioned Mitchell”s memory, asking him if he remembered when the bike injury happened. Larsen went on to say that even if he had left the door open on rare occasions, there was never much money in the cash box at one time.
He also said he occasionally took small amounts of money from the cash box to pay paper carriers extra for large papers.
Shaw had already posted a $15,000 bond Sept. 20. Since she was fired from The Packet, Shaw has started an online news site, The Possum Town Post.
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