FBI agents and Pennsylvania State Police searched Schuylkill County Clerk of Courts Stephen M. Lukach Jr.'s office Wednesday morning as part of the investigation into alleged misappropriation of public money.
After obtaining a search warrant, 12 people spent three hours in Lukach's now-locked office at the Schuylkill County Courthouse, leaving about noon with several carts full of boxes, documents and other items.
"I do not have specifics of what they took," First Assistant District Attorney Maria T. Casey said after the agents hauled the carts out of the building. "They took a rather large amount of documents."
However, the search warrant, signed on Tuesday afternoon by U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan E. Schwab, Harrisburg, authorized the seizure of financial documents, contracts, receipts, purchase records, computers, calendars, diaries, electronic storage devices and numerous other records and items.
"They did a pretty clean sweep of the office," First Deputy Clerk of Courts Paul Steffanic said.
FBI Special Agent Alan Jones said he could not comment on the search.
Casey and District Attorney Christine A. Holman declined to say when and by whom charges might be filed against Lukach, a Lake Hauto Democrat in his seventh term in office. Casey said the county district attorney's office is deferring prosecution to federal and state authorities, which will need time to sift through the evidence.
"They will want to examine documents and determine what course of action they will take," she said.
No charges have been filed against Lukach as of Wednesday, Holman said.
Lukach, who could not be reached Wednesday for comment, is scheduled to resign today in the wake of allegations he took public money and used it for personal expenses. First elected in 1987, he is Schuylkill County's senior row officer,
Holman announced Lukach's resignation Friday at a news conference where she and county Controller Christy Joy detailed allegations that Lukach took money from his office's automation fund and used it for car payments and altered the payees on five checks that actually were used for other personal expenses.
"We would be expecting a written confirmation of Mr. Lukach's resignation," Holman said Wednesday.
Holman and Casey said their worries about Lukach returning to his office to tamper with evidence were justified by what they said was Joy's discovery that $9,050 in cash and a $1,000 check were not deposited in the bail account.
"This money is gone," Casey said.
Casey said the FBI and police found $4 on Wednesday in the bail money drawer at the office.
"It was stuffed last week," she said.
Joy said he had told Lukach that deposits of bail money should be made daily.
"It was not on record at the treasurer's office," Joy said of the $9,050 in cash and the $1,000 check. He said he and county Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. on Wednesday called Wells Fargo Bank, which confirmed the money was not deposited into the bail account.
Joy said the money was deposited at the clerk of courts' office on April 8, the last day Lukach was known to have been at the courthouse.
Steffanic said the FBI and police removed a lot of items, mostly paperwork, but not everything.
"There's still a lot in there," he said. "They didn't remove any personal items."
Steffanic, who will become clerk of courts when and if Lukach resigns until a successor is appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett and confirmed by the state Senate, said he talked on Tuesday with Lukach, who indicated he would go to the office this week in order to remove personal items.
Frederick J. Fanelli, Pottsville, Lukach's solicitor, declined to comment Wednesday on the search.
The clerk's office remained in operation Wednesday, although Steffanic said Lukach's personal office is now locked.