Pennsylvania Fire/EMS Officials Face Embezzlement Charges

Media, Pennsylvania -- Two former officers of the Media Fire & Hook & Ladder Co. 1 were charged Wednesday with embezzling more than $140,000 from the company's ambulance fund and credit card accounts.

The theft occurred over six years, including the period of time when former fire company president John Bonsall was planning a wedding and purchasing a new home, authorities said. It is alleged that stolen money was also used to boost the salary of former treasurer and co-defendant Richard Thomas.

Bonsall, 47, of Ridge Boulevard in Brookhaven, and Thomas, 62, of Pinebrook Drive in Media, surrendered to authorities Wednesday morning, capping an exhaustive criminal investigation that began in October 2005.

Bonsall was with attorney Patrick F. Lomax at the joint preliminary arraignment before Magisterial District Judge Stephanie Klein and declined comment.

"It is a dark chapter for the fire company," said Bill Tyson, who was elevated from vice president to president of the fire company in September 2004. That is when an internal investigation began and Bonsall resigned from the post he held for 15 years.

Authorities suspect the stolen funds also paid for hotel rooms, as well as meals and tickets to see Mariah Carey in concert, among other things.

"Clearly, they are not fire company expenses," said Tyson, an 18-year member of the fire company.

According to the arrest affidavits, Bonsall and Thomas misused the fire company's American Express and MasterCard credit cards; Bonsall took unauthorized loans and also repaid the organization with fire company funds; and Thomas added himself to the fire company health insurance policy and took inflated salary advances.

Additionally, Bonsall is accused of forging Tyson's signature on 44 checks in order to make them appear valid. In order to write a check from the firehouse account, two of the authorized signers -- Bonsall, Thomas or Tyson -- had to sign the check.

According to Tyson, private auditors and attorneys were brought in after a review uncovered some inappropriate activity. He said that the majority of money was taken from money received as reimbursement for ambulance service.

An audit determined that from December 1997 to June 2004, Bonsall withdrew $84,865.63 of firehouse money for personal use, the affidavit states. Additionally, he used two credit cards for personal use, to the tune of $22,364.74 on American Express and $10,826.13 on the MasterCard.

According to affidavit, Thomas improperly charged $1,677.63 to the American Express card and $1,729.75 to MasterCard. Also, he had $2,700 in undocumented expenses, used $761.20 to pay his personal American Express bill, received $2,577 in health insurance and overpaid his salary by $12,500, racking up a total of $21,946.36 in unauthorized expenditures.

An investigation determined that Bonsall would steal checks coming in from insurance companies to reimburse the ambulance fund from which he took the unauthorized loans. Bonsall would go to the post office box before Thomas, who normally got the mail.

Bonsall would deposit the insurance checks for the ambulance into the fire company account and then give Thomas the deposit receipt implicating it was repayment for his unauthorized loans.

While Thomas knew that Bonsall was borrowing money, he did not know that Bonsall was using the money from the ambulance fund to pay back his loans, the affidavit states.

Thomas told investigators in an interview in February that he approached Bonsall after he noticed that some of the checks were handwritten, though it was common practice to use the computer to print out the checks.

"Bonsall simply told Thomas that he needed some money for personal things and that it would be paid back," the affidavit states. Bonsall borrowed money for a variety of reasons, including a new home, according to the document.