By Diane Petryk
NORTHUMBERLAND — When Jack Fasold looked at how good the forgeries were, he couldn’t believe it.
Fasold’s signature, as president of the Northumberland Sewer Authority, and those of Jack Snyder, authority treasurer, were neatly and routinely forged on payroll checks for more than five years. The scam netted about $300,000.
Charged in the case is Cynthia Jo Lark, 48, of 625 King St., who just resigned from the Borough Council member.
State police say Lark, in her capacity as office manager of the sewer authority, created the fake checks. She is charged with forgery, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and receiving stolen property.
She is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing in front of District Judge Robert Bolton at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday. She was released Friday on $20,000 unsecured bond.
The investigating officer, trooper James Nizinski, said Lark cooperated by providing a written statement detailing her activities with the sewer authority.
“The defendant states she was hired by the authority in 1994 as a clerk and that her job included accounting and payroll duties,” Nizinski wrote. “Starting on or around 2000/2001, she would transfer money from the authority’s general account at Northumberland National Bank into the payroll account.
“The defendant would then write herself checks in excess of her authorized pay, forge the names of Fasold and Snyder, allowing her to deposit the money in her personal account. This was done without the knowledge of anyone (else) at the authority.”
Lark’s legitimate pay was $26,913 in 2005 and it rose to $33,113 in 2009. According to a forensic audit by Herring & Roll of Sunbury, Lark took the following amounts in excess of her salary: 2005, $38,477; 2006, $46,527; 2007, $60,800; 2008, $77,923; and 2009, $70,397.
“She got greedy,” said Fasold.
That was part of what tripped her up.
The other part was an illness that caused a substitute to be sent to fill in at her job.
On Jan. 27, Lark suffered a brain aneurism and was hospitalized. She answered the phone Tuesday, but said she was not prepared to talk about the resignation or an audit at the sewer authority because she was still dealing with problems from her recent illness. She did not answer the phone Friday.
Ordinarily, she never took a day off or a vacation, Fasold said. She would even come to work when she was ill. She couldn’t afford to have someone else pick up the mail, he surmised.
When Ann August, a Northumberland Borough clerk, arrived at the authority to sub for Lark in February, she noticed the payroll checks made out to Lark in amounts too high to be Lark’s pay.
When Fasold and Snyder were shown the checks, they said they did not sign them. The signatures, however, were good facsimiles, Fasold said.
It was then that the authority’s solicitor, Gene Brosius, ordered the forensic accounting. It determined that between 2005 and the present, Lark had written herself additional checks totaling $294,125.
Lark was able to cover the additional withdrawals, Fasold said, in part because she was in charge of the books. She created fictitious audits, attributing them to Forgett & Kerstetter of Hummels Wharf — even using their stationery.
“They didn’t do any of it,” Fasold said. “They never audited us.”
She made it all look official, he said, even putting it in a bound book, with an official statement page.
“I gave copies to one of the auditors — he couldn’t believe it, it looked so authentic,” Fasold said.
“She was very good,” he said.
State police, Fasold said, determined that the signatures on the checks were forgeries.
Lark came to work for the sewer authority when it was formed in 1994, straight from a clerk’s job with the borough.
Fasold is the first and only president the authority has had. Its budget in 2009 was $985,000, he said. Sewer rates have only gone up once, he added.
Although Lark took care of financial matters, from time to time, you have to have an audit, he said.
“I would ask her, “How’s that audit going?’ and she would say: ‘I’ll have to check.’ ”
“We trusted her fully,” he said. “Anything we’d raise a question about, she always had the right answer.”
What amazes him, he added, is that she didn’t pay the payroll taxes for the authority’s four employees for five years, and no one has ever come forward to question it — at least to their knowledge.
“I’ve no idea why,” he said.
The good thing is, he said, the authority has insurance coverage for theft.
But, he said, he has come to question his powers of observation. He said he was an experienced businessman, co-owner of Fasold Brothers Appliance until his retirement, and he went to the authority office at 100 Water St. every day.
“I spent at least an hour,” he said. “I went to every budget meeting. And I’m flabbergasted.”
Lark, he said, is a single mother with three daughters, one in college and two in high school. She didn’t wear expensive clothing or jewelry and drove a used van.
“Where’s did the money go?” he wondered.
