Nov 26, 2013 4 min read

WAYNESBURG – A former secretary in the Greene County sheriff’s office was charged Tuesday with stealing $325 from the money she collected in the office for issuing concealed weapons permits.

Charges were filed against Faith Ann Morris, 46, of 215 Mountainview Gardens, Waynesburg, by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation for the state Attorney General’s Office. The charges included two counts of theft by deception and one count each of theft by failure to make required disposition, receiving stolen property, misapplication of entrusted or government property and tampering with records.

Morris had worked as a secretary in the sheriff’s office for more than a year and resigned in October after she was interviewed by agents for the attorney general and allegedly admitted to taking the money, Sheriff Richard Ketchem said.

Ketchem said Morris had been a good employee. But early this year, money started coming up missing, he said. “Every time it was just a little bit,” Ketchem said. His wife, Robin Ketchem, the sheriff’s captain, began going through the records. “We kept checking until we ran it back to her,” he said.

Ketchem said another former secretary, Tara Smith, also had recounted an incident in which money collected for permits had come up short and Morris had gone out to her car to get money to make up the difference.

Ketchem, who will retire when his term expires next month, said it was disappointing to learn an employee in the office was allegedly stealing money. “We’ve never had that, as many years as we had been there, we’ve never had that before,” he said.

Ketchem had asked the Waynesburg Borough police to investigate the matter in March, according to the criminal complaint. Waynesburg police and the Greene County controller’s office then reported their findings to District Attorney Marjorie Fox, who turned the case over to the attorney general.

Ketchem had identified Morris as the sole employee in charge of collecting the cash and filing the concealed weapons permit applications during the time money was found to be missing between December and February, the complaint said.

He also told investigators Morris was having personal financial difficulties and had taken on the financial obligations of her son.

Smith, when interviewed, told agents said she had determined 13 applications for concealed weapons permits were not accounted for in the sheriff’s office and she believed Morris had been throwing away completed applications, keeping the cash, issuing the permits but not reporting the transactions to the county, the complaint said.

Morris also had issued herself a gun permit and allegedly failed to pay for it, Smith told the agents.

Records of gun permits issued by state police were compared with the list of requests recorded in the sheriff’s office. State police records revealed 13 permits had been issued that were not accounted for in the sheriff’s office records, indicating missing applications in the sheriff’s office. One of the missing applications was for Morris’s permit, the complaint said.

Interviewed by the agents, Morris admitted issuing a permit to herself but maintained she had paid for it. Once informed of the findings of the investigation, however, Morris confessed, saying she had stolen the money to help her son, the complaint said. “I was trying to be a good mom,” she told the agents. She also told agents most of the stolen money had been used to pay rent at Mountainview Gardens, where she resides with her son.

Morris was arraigned on the charges Tuesday before District Judge Lou Dayich in Waynesburg and was released on $5,000 unsecured bond. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Dec. 5.