By Amelia A. Pridemore
Register-Herald Reporter
— A former Fayette County sheriff’s deputy and former fire department president who State Police say took about $374,000 in fire funds was arrested Monday.
Jack Micah Feltner, 40, of 214 Duncan Ave., Oak Hill, is charged with two counts of fraudulent schemes, said 1st Sgt. J.L. Cahill of the State Police Lewisburg detachment. Feltner was arrested Monday and arraigned before Fayette County Magistrate Sharon McGraw. He has been released on $50,000 bond.
From January 2002 to the end of 2009, Feltner was president of the Oak Hill Volunteer Fire Department Corporation, Cahill said. During that period, Feltner was the sole person responsible for compiling the number of calls and members per call for billing purposes. Over a six-year period, 2003 to 2009, Feltner allegedly took an estimated $374,000. That money came from two different funds. He allegedly did this by overbilling the funds and keeping the extra money.
Oak Hill firefighters are paid $12 per call, Cahill explained. That money comes from the city’s general fund if the call is within the city limits. For calls outside the city, the money comes from the Oak Hill Volunteer Fire Department Fire Levy Fund. The criminal complaint states Feltner created excessive billing information and presented this to Oak Hill city officials in the form of an invoice. Feltner would receive one check from the city’s general fund and a second from the fire levy fund.
Other department members were paid what they were owed, Cahill noted.
Feltner, Cahill said, concealed his actions by spending excessively and filtering the funds through various accounts. The criminal complaint states that on at least 45 dates when Feltner cashed the fire service-related checks, he also made cash deposits into several of his personal banking accounts.
The payment process changed in July 2009, and Oak Hill city officials noticed “dramatically” lower fire protection expenditures, according to both Cahill and the criminal complaint. Officials suspected fraudulent billing because of the drop and because only Feltner had controlled the billing process.
Oak Hill officials contacted the State Police in Charleston in early January, and Cahill was assigned to the case as a special investigator.
City officials conducted an internal audit that revealed inflated fire costs beginning in June 2003 and lasting through June 2009, Cahill said. This audit was followed by two others done by the State Police and an outside, independent, certified public accounting firm.
These audits have revealed, the complaint states, a fraudulent billing practice exceeding $203,000 from the city’s general fund and exceeding $171,000 from the fire levy fund.
Cahill said 2002 billing was investigated, as well, but no records from that year appear to be exaggerated.
The Oak Hill Volunteer Fire Department has undertaken new protocols to prevent something like this from happening again, Cahill said. He noted that this should “absolutely” not reflect poorly on the other Oak Hill firefighters, Fire Chief Tim Richardson or any other volunteer fire department.
“They do a thankless job in the middle of the night, but some take advantage of the situation,” Cahill said.
This case has a “definite motive in place,” but Cahill declined to elaborate further. Exactly how the money was spent remains under investigation.
“The chances of recovering the money appears unlikely,” Cahill added.
Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler said Feltner resigned from that department Monday. Feltner was a sergeant who had worked for the department for 13 years. At the time of his resignation, he was handling road patrol duties. He had also been an investigator with the TRIDENT regional drug task force. TRIDENT disbanded last year.
“Am I disappointed? Yes,” Kessler said. “But everyone has to be held accountable, no matter who they are.”
Kessler emphasized Feltner is innocent until proved guilty in the court system. But the alleged actions of one person should not reflect badly upon other police officers and firefighters, he said.
— E-mail: apridemore@register-herald.com
