PORT CARBON - A man and woman charged with stealing money while working for Boardman Brothers Motor Car Co. in East Norwegian Township during a four-year period appeared Tuesday for preliminary hearings.
After a more than three-hour hearing, Magisterial District Judge David A. Plachko dismissed charges against Sandra Lee Eggers and held several of the charges against Larry M. Sweigert for Schuylkill County Court.
Sweigert, 51, and Eggers, 55, both of 750 Trail Lane, Enola, were each charged with felony offenses of receiving stolen property, theft, conspiracy and failure to make required disposition of funds received.
Plachko ruled that the commonwealth did not prove a prima facie case against Eggers saying there were "too many holes" in the evidence presented.
For Sweigert, the judge dismissed the conspiracy charges saying simply because the two live together does not meet the criteria for the offense.
State police Trooper Robert Kluge of the Schuylkill Haven station initially charged Sweigert with stealing more than $120,000 between May 2005 and April 2009 while employed as general manager of the business.
At the start of the hearing, Kluge amended the complaint, changing the dates for Sweigert from 2005 to April 2011 and for Eggers up until September 2010.
Kluge said Eggers was hired by Sweigert to work at the dealership while the two lived together and charged her with taking $4,900 on April 27, 2009.
Co-owner Robert Boardman said he opened the business in 2004 and hired Sweigert as manager that year. Boardman said he knew Sweigert for more than 20 years and that the two had worked together on several occasions during that time.
He said that in 2009, he determined the business was not making the amount of profit it should and assumed the duties of manager.
Shortly after, Boardman said a review of the books uncovered discrepancies with money and led him to believe Sweigert was taking it.
"He was stealing from day one," Boardman said of Sweigert.
Under questioning by public defender Paul Domalakes, Sweigert's attorney, Boardman said that although bank statements from the business were mailed directly to his home, he did not take the time to review them in depth.
"I put it all in Larry's lap and trusted him to do it and he didn't," Boardman said of his former manager taking care of the finances.
Harry Winter, current manager of the business since 2010-11, started working as a salesman in 2005 and worked under Sweigert.
Taking more than 2 1/2 hours reviewing numerous "deal jackets" and paperwork for the court, Winter testified that he determined numerous cash deposits from customers were not remitted to the company's account, that Sweigert had checks issued to himself and that the man sold vehicles and kept any money received.
Winter said that while serving as manager, Sweigert handled all of the money from sales as well as the paperwork.
"All the cash went to Larry Sweigert," he told the court.
Under cross examination, Domalakes questioned a document that Winter said there was $3,000 missing, when the paperwork showed a discrepancy of only about $500.
Domalakes questioned if there was a deposit slip for each vehicle or if multiple transactions could be placed on one deposit slip.
Winter said he was not sure exactly how each and every deposit slip was made out, claiming the salesman making the deal turned over any checks or cash received. While acting as a salesman, Winter said he never made out a deposit slip or made a deposit run to the bank.
Winter also told the court he spent almost three years going over the books.
"I was checking and rechecking and rechecking," he said.
He also said that there were numerous deals where no money was missing.
In clarifying testimony, Plachko asked about one "deal" that did not indicate cash was paid even though Winter claimed that from that deal, cash was not deposited or accounted for.
Winter said there was a cash deposit but did not know why it was not written in the block designated for cash received.
Although he did not testify, in paperwork filed at the time of the arrests, Kluge said Sweigert was hired as general manager when the business opened in 2004 and in 2008, he hired Eggers as a secretary.
He said the thefts came to light in 2009 when Boardman began to question why his company was not making any money and why bill collectors were calling about unpaid invoices.
The trooper said Boardman began looking at old transactions and found discrepancies with cash transactions from customers where not all the cash from sales were being deposited into the proper accounts.
Kluge said the investigation determined that on more than 20 occasions Sweigert received cash from customers and failed to deposit the full amount in Boardman Brothers accounts, wrote a check in the amount of $2,000 to "cash money" and wrote a check in the amount of $3,627 to himself "for taxes loan (plus) 267 exp." That check, Kluge said, was not authorized by the dealership.
The total amount of money taken by Sweigert was $124,059.94.
Kluge and Assistant District Attorney John Fegley amended the complaint to read the total amount stolen by Sweigert to $238,753.94. Fegley said this amount not only includes money stolen but also additional expenses or losses as a result of his actions.
In the case involving Eggers, Kluge said the woman made a deposit for three vehicles totaling $18,285.50, but the amount that actually should have been remitted was $23,185.50, leaving a shortage of $4,900 unaccounted for.
Eggers' attorney, Nick Quinn, argued the commonwealth could not link his client to the theft of the $4,900, saying no documentation to such a crime was presented.