A former City of Clearwater employee is accused of stealing more than $148,000 from the Clearwater Parks and Recreation Department. Police say he used the money to fund an addiction.
58-year-old Robert Carpenter was arrested Friday morning and charged with scheming to defraud, a first-degree felony.
Carpenter was a recreation supervisor assigned to the athletics area of the Parks and Recreation Department.
He is accused of taking cash payments from a concessionaire at Eddie C. Moore Complex and from a soccer league that rented fields from the city, in addition to cash thefts from two other sources or events.
The thefts date back as early as 2013.
“We do have some information that leads us to believe he does have a gambling addiction,” said Clearwater Police Chief Dan Slaughter.
Police say the amateur soccer league “LaLiga Mexicana” had an agreement with the city of Clearwater to use soccer fields in exchange for $5,500 per season.
Representatives from the soccer team told police they always paid cash directly to Carpenter, and those funds were never deposited to the Parks and Recreation Department.
A police report says from 2013 to the present, Carpenter unlawfully kept $54,000 in payments that rightfully belonged to the city.
Detectives also spoke with Ed Bates, who owns “Kinney’s Kitchen.” From 2014 through 2018, Bates agreed to pay $26,000 per year in cash for the rights to sell concessions at the Eddie C. Moore Complex.
Bates said he always gave cash to Carpenter personally and was never given a receipt. City officials confirmed that an agreement was made with Bates, but there was never any record of payments.
Based on the absence of payments in the Parks and Recreation accounting records, investigators say Carpenter unlawfully kept $91,000 in payments.
City officials asked Carpenter about these funds and he stated he was taking Bates’ payments and applying them to the accounting records for Clearwater’s McMullen Booth Tennis Complex to make the McMullen Complex’s finances appear better than they were.
Carpenter agreed to meet with the director of the Parks and Recreation department to explain this further, but then Carpenter resigned the following day without explanation and without providing paperwork.
Police also spoke with Parks and Recreation employee Patrick Carter. Carter said in February 2018, following a tournament, there was $1,200 in cash missing from the ticket sales. He added the bag had been cut open. Carpenter explained he borrowed $880 because he needed the money and he never repaid it.
Police detectives also learned in March 2018, the parks and recreation department collected $2,210 in cash and checks from a men’s basketball league. Teams began inquiring about their payments as they noted that the checks had not been cashed.
On March 26, a fellow city employee asked Carpenter about the payments, and Carpenter said he had borrowed some of the money for a medical emergency and would repay the money the next day.
Carpenter resigned without returning the funds.
“Our detectives spent months piecing together this case,” said Slaughter. “This is a supervisor who was supposed to be responsible for making sure taxpayers’ money is not stolen. Now it is going to cost him.”
Officials believe he acted alone.
“We’ve interviewed everybody that had that cash relationship in this particular division and we feel comfortable that its just Mr. Carpenter,” said Chief Slaughter.
“That was taxpayer money that was stolen by this employee,” Slaughter added. “That money was owed to them, to their government and its just that simple, that clear.”
“We are disappointed that one of our own employees engaged in such behavior,” said City Manager Bill Horne. “We have hired a forensic auditor and will be implementing recommendations for putting into place the proper checks and balances.”
“Yes, we made a mistake. There should have been better oversight to pick up on some of the revenue,” said Assistant City Manager Jill Silverboard.
Officials say he kept the funds off the books so supervisors would not realize that money was missing.
“It was just enough to go undetected for a little while,” said Chief Slaughter.
In January, the city of Clearwater began using a new, more modern financial system to handle fee collections. They have also changed procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“A lot of people placed a lot of trust in this one individual that I hope won’t reflect on all of us as a whole,” said Silverboard.
Carpenter was hired by the city in August 1997. At the time of his resignation, he earned $52,699 annually.