NEWS > 06 December 2006

Article sourced from

DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Mo
06 December 2006

This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.

Clothes case gets 3 police off

Three Cedar Falls police officers have been fired for allegedly stealing several hundred dollars in public money.

State records indicate that in June, Officer Joshua Atteberry bought a suit and shirts worth $507 from a department store. He gave city officials a receipt for the purchase, which relieved him of the obligation to reimburse the city for a $475 clothing-allowance advance. Atteberry, within a few days, returned the clothes to Von Maur and received a full refund.

The city investigated the matter and determined that in 2004 Atteberry had done something similar by submitting receipts for the purchase of clothing he later returned for a refund. That, too, resulted in $475 in city funds being converted to Atteberry's use.

Atteberry, who sometimes worked as an undercover narcotics officer, was fired in September. Three other Cedar Falls police officers - Brad Brown, Joel Oltragge and Holly Pohl - were also fired. Brown was later reinstated but was ordered to serve a suspension and reimburse the city roughly $300.

At a recent hearing dealing with Atteberry's claim for unemployment benefits, Police Chief Rick Ahlstrom described the officers' offenses.

"They each involved the submission of receipts for clothing that they did not keep," he testified. "One of the individuals stated during our investigation that he deliberately submitted a fraudulent receipt so he could take this money and spend it on other things. ... We're talking about multiple years and hundreds of dollars for each of the four people."

Atteberry testified that he bought the suit and shirts with no intention of keeping them. He said he did so to compensate himself for other work clothes he had bought at his own expense.

When asked to explain why he didn't turn in the receipts for those other purchases, Atteberry testified, "I just didn't do it. ... There's no good reason."

Atteberry was denied unemployment benefits.

The matter was referred to the Iowa attorney general's office for consideration of criminal charges, but none of the four has been charged.

Bob Brammer, spokesman for Attorney General Tom Miller, said Tuesday that the matter remains under investigation.

Cedar Falls employs 43 police officers.

"Obviously this has caused some upheaval in the organization," Ahlstrom said Tuesday. "We're just trying to work our way through that."

According to the records of Iowa Workforce Development and the Iowa Employment Appeals Board, these other Iowans have been fired and accused of misconduct:

- Vance Hawthorne of Des Moines was fired from The Des Moines Register in September for allegedly violating the company's ethics policies. Hawthorne had worked at the Register for 16 years and was the newspaper's assistant business editor when he was dismissed.

He was accused of using his position at the newspaper to obtain inside information about a reporter's investigation of a local nonprofit organization, the Excel Community Outreach Center, then passing it on to Excel's executive director, Jacquie Seymour.

At his recent unemployment-benefits hearing, Hawthorne said he told Seymour only that she had nothing to worry about regarding the article. "I had no idea what the story was," he testified. "It was not like I was a Benedict Arnold or something like that."

Hawthorne was denied unemployment benefits.

- Crystal Cook of Clinton was fired from Community Care, a De Witt nursing home, when her employers discovered she had recently been sentenced on a felony charge of manufacturing methamphetamine.

After it was discovered that her sentence included a deferred judgment that could result in the case being expunged from her record, Cook was rehired at the home with the approval of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

State records indicate Cook was placed on the state's registry of known child abusers earlier this year after her newborn child tested positive for marijuana - a result of Cook's alleged drug use while pregnant.

Cook was awarded unemployment benefits.

- Jamie Stephenson of Laurens was fired from Hovenden Memorial Good Samaritan Center, a nursing home in Laurens, for inconsiderate care.

The dismissal followed an investigation into injuries sustained by an elderly female resident of the home.

Stephenson was denied unemployment benefits.

- Ronda Troendle of Brooklyn was fired from Care Initiatives' Montezuma nursing home, where she worked as an aide. She was fired for refusing to cooperate with a company investigation into her own allegations that she had been doing work that should have been performed by licensed nurses.

Troendle said she didn't want to cooperate with the company's investigation because she first wanted the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals to look into the matter. According to company officials, the state inspections agency was notified of the matter but declined to investigate.

After Troendle's allegations were verified by the company, she was fired and two nurses were disciplined.

Troendle was denied unemployment benefits.

EiP Comments:

* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.

Other related articles:

Article sourced from

DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Mo06 December 2006

Clothes case gets 3 police off

EiP Comments:

DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Mo
06 December 2006