nothin Former Land Trust Chief Arrested | New Haven Independent

Former Land Trust Chief Arrested

The accountants noticed some unaccounted-for ATM withdrawals as well as purchases from Walmart and a camera shop. The amounts were small. They added up.

In the end, the New Haven Land Trust discovered around $21,000 unreported” and unaccounted for.” The board called the state attorney general as well as the police, who started an investigation.

That investigation ended Thursday morning, when cops arrested the land trust’s 38-year-old former executive director on larceny charges. He had paid back around $5,000 of the $21,000 stolen, police said. (The former executive director could not be reached for comment.) He posted a $15,000 bond and was released from the 1 Union Ave. lock-up around 1:30 p.m., police said.

The arrest was one of 20 carried out in raids beginning at 5 a.m. Local detectives joined with state parole and probation officials, state police, and federal marshals to try to serve 40 warrants for serious offenses, many of them involving sex offenders but others for unrelated crimes including the alleged land trust embezzlement. They ended up tracking down 26 of the alleged offenders, 15 of them from New Haven.

Thomas MacMillan Photo

New land trust boss Elicker: We’re moving forward.

Justin Elicker, who took over as the land trust’s new executive director last month, said the organization is moving on from the episode.

Everyone I have spoken with at the Land Trust is excited about the direction in which we’re headed. We have exciting projects in the pipeline. I can’t underscore the amount of energy and growth the organization is going to be experiencing in the coming months and years,” Elicker said.

The 32-year-old trust manages 80 acres of public space, supports close to 50 community gardens in neighborhoods across town, and conducts environmental education programs. The organization has about a $125,000 a nnual budget.

The land trust first got wind of a problem in mid-January 2013, according to board chair J. R. Logan.

That’s when Logan first got a call from Lye & Lye, the accounting firm preparing the organization’s annual tax returns and financial review.

They called and said, We haven’t got reports’ for some expenses,” Logan recalled. I had thought all that information was sent to them.

I knew something was amiss.”

He spoke with the executive director, then placed him on unpaid leave while the board investigated further. By the end of the month, it did discover a host of small purchases and ATM withdrawals that hadn’t been reported, documented, and recorded, as required, in the agency’s Quickbooks accounting program. Logan described the purchases as mostly small stuff” that in the end added up.”

Upon making this discovery, the board fired the executive director, then contacted the authorities. It also sent a letter to supporters to inform them of the alleged theft.

Fortunately, the organization’s insurance covered the losses except for a deductible of around $1,000, according to Logan.

The board hired Catherine Bradshaw to run the land trust on an interim basis until hiring Elicker, a former mayoral candidate, in February to take the job permanently.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated raid, the state police arrested two men in a house undergoing construction at 9 N. Bank St. in the East Rock neighborhood. They reported confiscating 74.6 grams of meth, 250 bags of heroin, 2.2 grams of marijuana, 27.5 ounces of liquid GHB, seven hydrocodone pills, seven Clonazepam pills, 11 Vicodin pills, drug factory paraphernalia and $2,828 in cash. They also reported finding a book on how to build hidden spaces in homes — and they found some of those spaces. The house has been a subject of controversy for years in the neighborhood; click here, here, and here for prior stories about that.

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