Alleged tool thieves booked

University police are continuing an investigation of facilities
management, after an employee and a manager of a local tool shop
were both arrested in an alleged scheme involving the theft of
thousands of dollars worth of university tools.

Authorities said the arrests may be the result of a series of
burglaries that could have begun over five years ago.

James Ott, the manager of the facilities management tool crib,
was arrested May 11 on burglary charges and is suspected of
illegally purchasing construction tools with university funds and
reselling them for his own profit to other facilities workers.

University police detective Richard Elias said Ott was a
low-level employee who took advantage of his position in the tool
crib, which is a central depository for construction tools and
equipment.

Elias said he could not say definitively how much money Ott had
made because the investigation was still ongoing, but that it was
at least in the thousands of dollars.

“As manager, he was in a position to acquire equipment
needed by facilities and this was part of his job description.
Through the course of time he took steps to conceal his actions and
steal without being detected,” Elias said.

“He would manipulate purchase orders and conceive of other
means to acquire tools purchased by the university under the guise
of providing to other employees,” Elias said. “(He)
would simply turn around and sell to people for their personal
use.”

Robert Kann, an employee for the tool store Scotty’s and
Sons, was arrested later in May for conspiracy to commit grand
theft, and is suspected of helping facilitate Ott’s alleged
crimes.

Kann is one of many people who sell tools to the university, and
facilities management director Ron Calloway said the department has
used Scotty’s and Sons, a store Kann works at, as a source
for tool purchases for about five years.

Calloway said that the university processes hundreds of purchase
orders each week and three people are required to sign a standard
purchase order for it to be processed.

Barry Cole, senior superintendent of the hardware shop, said Ott
sold many of the tools to low-level employees who were buying them
for personal use and sometimes even thought they were doing the
manager a favor.

“Everyone had the same story. The story was to give the
money to Jim and he would buy (the tool) on a credit card and he
would get travel miles on his credit card,” Cole said.
“It was all done in the open.”

Authorities said they believe most of the workers who bought
tools from Ott thought his transactions were legal. They said they
are investigating whether Ott may have been manipulating purchase
orders and stealing from the university since he was hired, almost
a decade ago.

Both university police and the facilities management department
have investigations into the theft.

But at least one worker believes another outside institution
should be involved in the internal investigation process, saying
that upper management who may have approved some of the purchase
orders could have known about the crimes.

“When I see incompetence at the top and people hurting
people I work alongside with, it really irritates me,” said a
worker who has been with facilities management for over 10 years
and wished to remain anonymous.

“Someone who is part of the problem should not be running
the investigation. … Their own investigation shouldn’t be
internal, not by the guy who signed all these purchase
orders,” the worker said. “This is just common
sense.”

The worker said that everyone in facilities management who had
bought a tool from Ott was being asked to bring the tools in for
confiscation by police. He said that workers were not being
reimbursed or paid for the equipment they purchased in transactions
they thought were legal.

Some workers in facilities management were upset about the
incident and hoped the department’s image wouldn’t be
tarnished.

“Any time you have a problem in your department that you
hear about … it’s bothersome,” said Greg Zoll, senior
superintendent of the facilities management roofing shop.

“I feel bad for the victims, I feel bad for (Jim Ott)
even,” Zoll said. “It’s just a bad
situation.”