Local nonprofit adjusts security after checks stolen

In the wake of checks reportedly stolen from its on-site mailbox this summer, Rogersville nonprofit Equi-Librium Therapy Center Inc. is stepping up security measures.

Kent Crumpley, director of the equine assisted therapy organization, said the company installed a $120 locking mailbox and roughly $350 in video surveillance equipment after some $6,575 in checks went missing from the nonprofit’s mailbox on East State Highway AD in Rogersville.

Crumpley said Equi-Librium wasn’t aware of the missing checks until six weeks after he suspects the thefts occurred.

“We would check our mailbox, and nothing would be in it. That’s what made us a little skeptical at first,” Crumpley said, noting Equi-Librium this spring mailed over 1,000 letters seeking donations as part of its 20th anniversary. “Usually with not-for-profits, you’re always getting some kind of mail, even junk mail.”

Anticipating the receipt of pledges made by regular contributors to Equi-Librium, Crumpley made some calls, discovered a few checks had been mailed months before and asked the donors to put stops on the payments. None of the checks were cashed, but the four that came up missing – a $4,000 insurance reimbursement check and three donations totaling $2,575 – might represent a fraction of the funds.

Equi-Librium staff filed a report with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, and Crumpley said a sheriff’s deputy in August indicated a 20-year-old female attempted to cash one of the checks July 17 at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in southeast Springfield. Crumpley said according to the report, the check was washed with acid to remove the nonprofit’s information and instead bore a name and address that store employees identified as forged.

“If they’re smart enough to wash the name off a check, then they’re smart enough to get a fake ID,” Crumpley said, adding law enforcement was skeptical the forger would have used a real name.

Deputy Cathy Ussery, public relations coordinator for the Sheriff’s Office, said no charges have been filed in the case, and it remains under active investigation.

“I know that there was a person of interest,” Ussery said. “It could be that they’re waiting for surveillance footage or confirmation of identity.”

She said deputies arrested 46-year-old Springfieldian Eric Vancil in late April for trafficking stolen identities. Three days later, deputies responded to a suspicious vehicle in a southwest Springfield neighborhood and arrested a man and woman when stolen mail, credit cards and personal checks were found in the car.

With nine years of experience in the Sherriff’s Office, Ussery said mailbox theft recently has become a widespread issue. According to data from the Sheriff’s Office and the Springfield and Republic police departments, more than 500 thefts have occurred in Greene County within the past month, concentrated weekdays 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

“They typically will hit areas when they know people are working,” Ussery said, adding Equi-Librium’s rural site doesn’t necessarily make the nonprofit more vulnerable to the crime.

On Oct. 26, Equi-Librium staff members arrived to discover another potential crime: A work trailer was left sitting at the driveway entrance and some power tools were lying in the road. Crumpley said the odd findings were reported to county authorities, who asked to review the nonprofit’s surveillance tapes but weren’t able to glean promising leads from the footage.

Ussery said the trailer was reported earlier that morning as being stolen from a home under construction on the 1600 block of Northeast Ridge Drive near Strafford, roughly eight miles from Equi-Librium’s property.

In an unrelated case, the day following a trailer theft, 48-year-old Karla Odom was found to have in her possession debit and credit cards and personal checks of at least seven individuals that were stolen from unlocked vehicles parked in driveways and open garages, according to the sheriff’s office.

“Our concern is how many other checks were stolen that we don’t know about,” Crumpley said, noting Equi-Librium typically receives calls toward the end of the year from donors if they failed to receive a thank you letter for their gift. “We don’t want people getting to the end of the year thinking that we forgot about them and then we’ve lost a donor.

“If people have made a contribution, we’d like them to contact us and let us know.”