Steals $58,000 From His Employer! Cries Like A BABY At Sentencing!

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: we are present this morning in the case of the state of Ohio versus Jonathan Williams case 26 CR 782 the defendant is present represented by counsel attorney Dan Williams we're here today for the purposes of a sentencing hearing on June 16th the defendant pled guilty to a one-count information that being theft a felony of the fourth degree a pre-sentence report and victim impact statement have been completed the parties have had the opportunity to view that pre-sentence report and are prepared to proceed with sentencing today there is a joint recommendation for community control sanctions thank you [00:00:30] Speaker 2: thank you mr. Williams yes sir or thank you as was indicated at the time of this plea joint recommendation of community control was made to the court so long as mr. Williams continued to abide by the terms and conditions of his bond to date he's done just that a number of documents have been submitted to the court in advance of the sentencing hearing in quote including the sentencing memorandum of the defendant a number of letters of support on behalf of mr. Williams as well as the pre-sentence report investigation we'd ask that those be incorporated into the record at this time your honor your honor when viewing the principles and purposes of felony sentencing it is our position that a non-residential community control sanction would be sufficient in this instance to both punish mr. Williams without imposing any unnecessary burden on any state or local resources as the court is aware mr. Williams has no prior criminal history of any kind this was quite frankly a crime of opportunity that was brought about by mounting death that mr. Williams felt he could no longer manage and we feel this occurred in certain circumstances that are unlikely to happen again I don't think there's any question that he's generally remorseful for his conduct as evidenced by his admission to his employer and also to the police he understands completely that he violated the position of trust that he was put in and the detriment that this has caused mr. Gidley's business he's asking the court not to view him or his character in the narrow lens of this particular conduct it's a reflect on a lifetime of good deeds and service to others mr. Williams is a well-regarded member of both his community and the church I think the letters of support that you've received reflect a man who has lived the vast majority of his life and service to other people understandably it's it's hard to reconcile the person that's been described in those letters with the person who committed the conduct that occurred here but you know that is what we're asking the court to do those that trust to know mr. Williams best believe he's fully capable of redemption and that's what we are asking the score today is to put him in the best position put him on the best path forward to achieve that redemption which most importantly is going to include making mr. Gidley whole again mr. Williams is gainfully employed he's always maintained steady employment throughout his life the only position he's going to be in in order to make restitution in this case is if he continued to work we feel that a non-residential community control sanction which would include an extensive period of house arrest or other non-residential sanctions would put him in the best position in order to make the victim whole in this case your honor so we'd ask to take all these things into consideration uh mr. Williams would like to address the court and we have two others that are here with him today his wife kylie williams and pastor ken wright who would also like to address the court well what order do you want to go in uh we'll have mr williams proceed first mr [00:03:31] Speaker 3: williams what do you want to tell me before i impose sentence thank you your honor for allowing me to [00:03:35] Speaker 4: speak first i want to say to brian and the entire lbl family that i'm truly sorry for for my court choices and everything that i've had to that you've had to go through over the last few years due to my selfishness i humbly and genuinely ask you for your forgiveness i was wrong and i'm sorry your honor with the contrite heart i am deeply sorry for my actions i know that i've done what i've done is wrong and unacceptable there's no excuse for my actions but i know the question remains why did i do it there are a few reasons i did what i did i had accumulated debt throughout the years and we were trying to purchase our first home we weren't able to get a loan without first improving my credit score and paying down some of the debt with all of the other bills still going on and my kids growing up and needing things for school and sports i felt helpless so i started depositing cash from my job into my personal account to stay on top of bills and to pay down debt in order to get approved for a home for my family believing that i would pay it back this is an insane way of thinking and i'm embarrassed to even say it out loud from the time i was very young child i've worked very hard to provide for my family my first job was when i was 10 years old where i would give money to my mother to help buy groceries for my sister and me i've worked and served every community i've been a part of since it's hard to believe that just a few years ago i was walking the hallways of the west wing in the white house working in the trump administration and now i'm standing before you today asking for mercy to be extended for the wrong i have done living under the weight of my choices the last two years have been very eye-opening and yet very challenging i've realized that i can't always do things on my own i can't just figure things out i've learned that i i need help when times get tough and not to lean on my own understanding or to take matters into my own hands i know there are consequences for my actions i try to teach my kids this every day every day that i get to either drop them off at school or text them i tell them four things one i love them to be a good leader make good choices and treat people the way you want to be treated i failed at my advice to my children but i pray that they will they will learn from my mistakes today as i stand before you i know the possibilities of my sentence but i'm asking you to show me mercy i'm asking that you give me a second chance at life and that i won't be separated from my kids and family i i now have multiple jobs that i'm working in including that including bus driving providing tech support online for ministry in arizona freelance photography music director at my church driving for amazon and picking up extra shifts i need to work to provide my family and also to offer restitution to those i've heard my goal in life is always to give more than i receive thank you for considering my request and hearing my heart [00:06:02] Speaker 3: when did you start uh taking this money [00:06:08] Speaker 4: i don't remember the exact date um it was probably in august or september 23. [00:06:19] Speaker 3: how long had you been working there at that by that point in time so i had i've been working for [00:06:25] Speaker 4: the company i think for over a year in various capacities i started as a as a cashier retail cashier in the chardon location and uh moved to the middle field location and kind of uh worked my way up as a as a manager and then when the person that was in my position before had resigned brian had asked me to take over that since i had a little bit of uh experience with quickbooks um but it was just i got that position because i i worked hard and i was committed to helping the company um and so i think i was there for a little over a year before i went to this position and how long were you in [00:07:09] Speaker 3: the position before you started to to steal um i don't know the exact but it was it was probably three three or four months what prompted you to make that decision i don't know your honor it was [00:07:26] Speaker 4: trying to trying to buy a house and not having the resources and that's really the only thing that we've wanted to do is purchase a home and having that there with no oversight um i don't know why i thought that i could take it and then put it back um but that was my that was my thinking okay so [00:07:45] Speaker 3: take me through the mechanics of how you manipulated the records such that it went undetected for a [00:07:54] Speaker 4: substantial period of time uh so the way that the system works is when when there's a cell on the store end the way that it got set up was there was a middle software uh you know how to explain software that connects the two together um and you decide what um transactions come through to the quickbooks and so when i had started to to take that money i knew that if i didn't select certain um transactions then they wouldn't come through to the quickbooks side of it [00:08:41] Speaker 3: so was that always cash yes sir okay and what was the uh rough percentage between cash and non-cash that came in i don't know that number um there there was [00:08:56] Speaker 4: way more checks and credit cards um daily than we had cash okay so how often were you taking the cash i'm not sure it was just whenever i got really low on our personal so if i were to give a an amount uh maybe once or twice a month and over what period of time once this started maybe eight months six months six eight months okay how much did you take so the report says 58 53 that was [00:09:31] Speaker 3: 53 50 the report is 58 58 257 21 cents yes sir yeah i can't argue with that number because we didn't do our own [00:09:42] Speaker 4: um on it but seems like a lot um especially with our lifestyle of living um but i'm not i'm not going to [00:09:50] Speaker 3: argue that that number well i'm not i'm not asking you to argue i'm asking you you're the one that was there yes sir you're the one that knows what you took when you took it how much you took how often you took so you tell me what you think the accurate amount is that you took [00:10:11] Speaker 4: when when i originally when i originally um confessed it to brian i did not think that it was more than ten to twelve thousand dollars because of that time frame um and what we used to in our personal so that's what i originally thought and then when that number came back i was just floored that it was that amount of money in that amount of time and what was your plan to pay [00:10:38] Speaker 3: it back you said that you took it with the intent of paying it back how were you going to do how with with how were you going to manipulate quickbooks what was your plan to manipulate quickbooks to put that money back i don't think i had a plan why not i don't know sir when was there a time when you were not paying sales tax or other taxes to the state of ohio that were supposed to be forwarded yes sir okay when [00:11:09] Speaker 4: did that start around the same time frame i i don't remember i know that i had an issue with it before all of this started um because of my lack of understanding of how to do the work um and so it was it was an ongoing thing with the sales tax what notification did you get from the [00:11:33] Speaker 3: department of taxation that that the business was delinquent in their tax return i received a letter a letter came to you yes sir and when you got the letter what action did you take um i began to try [00:11:50] Speaker 4: to figure out again how to calculate um those taxes for for the company um because i'm the only one that's doing that all right did you talk to mr gidley about that not directly we did have a couple conversations about uh taxes um but when they got delinquent um i did not talk to him about it i tried to figure it [00:12:18] Speaker 3: out myself okay why didn't you talk to him about it i was just afraid afraid of what afraid of being [00:12:26] Speaker 4: discovered no no sir i was afraid of losing my job or for not being able to do my job in that sense [00:12:33] Speaker 3: all right well what uh what communication did you then have with the department of taxation about these [00:12:40] Speaker 4: issues uh they told me i had a certain amount of time to get the money in um and so i started to they started to work on how to get that get that in and so and then they said that i couldn't do um normally it's by check i think it was um but i i couldn't do a business check i had to do a cashier's [00:13:04] Speaker 3: check okay and what was the what was it a installment payment or was it full payment what was it what did [00:13:13] Speaker 4: they demand i can't remember i think that by a certain time because it's been a couple years ago by a certain time i had to have a certain amount paid to keep the sales tax um it's not certificate the sales [00:13:30] Speaker 3: tax license um active okay and what efforts did you take to to to make those payments to the department of [00:13:40] Speaker 4: taxation um i i started to um make sure that we could have money in the bank account to do the cashier's check um and so i got a cashier's check and i mailed it to them um so that's what i did with that okay at some point it stopped right those payments stopped uh only after i was finished with the job i mean i don't know what happened after i finished with the job okay because the red tag got [00:14:11] Speaker 3: slapped on the door said you're closed because you don't pay your taxes were you gone by that time yes sir when did you leave that job um was it may 24 i think so suffice it to say mr gidley had no knowledge [00:14:33] Speaker 4: of this delinquency when you left right yes sir yeah i don't know if it was what i left he did mention to me that he saw the the check that was sent to the tax people so i can't remember if that was [00:14:48] Speaker 3: as i was leaving or afterwards and the the consequences of that aspect of the department of taxation slapping that bright piece of paper on the door was devastating to that business wasn't it i would assume so sir well clearly right you guys are closed because you don't pay your taxes so that i guess the question is why would a customer ever come back there again if first of all the store is closed and second of all they're they're determined to be a tax scofflaw why would anybody come back there so i here's the thing that puzzles me from listening to you to your wife and to the pastor is that you present a very you've presented a very conscious effort to say how you've spent many many years helping others volunteering for others doing good in your church and in your family and and you're robbing this guy blind how do how does that get squared how does one compartmentalize their life so that they live two completely different lives [00:16:25] Speaker 4: explain that to me okay i can't sir sorry i don't know how to explain it [00:16:34] Speaker 3: well you had a lot of time to think about this so you should have an explanation i mean there there are alternate explanations one of them could be maybe you've been counting the pastor all this time maybe you've been counting your church all this time that's one reasonable explanation the the problem is your your request to me is to to have to merce to have mercy or lenience toward you for your actions when when you showed no mercy or lenience toward mr gidley's company see taking responsibility is a nice phrase that's often used in this place and most people really they like to say it and uh very few often mean it because people like to say they take responsibility when they plead guilty and then when i sentence them they don't like the sentence so that tells me they're really not taking responsibility for their actions so do you have any any understanding on how you have wrecked a company that started from nothing 50 years ago do you have any can you even grasp what you did in all in the space of a year a couple years whatever it was all in the space of a year or two it took to destroy what was what took 50 years to build up to build up from from nothing now the effects are the effects are the effects are obvious they should be obvious to everybody okay but i've gotten a little bit more of a flavor of it with with some details that i was provided through the victim impact statement but these folks mr gidley's parents start this thing for nothing build it continue to build it turn it over to their son throughout that process they employ some people and then more people and then more people three locations and boom gone it's gone because of your your selfishness okay it doesn't matter certainly doesn't matter to me your your your your explanation for the selfishness because it's presented in the light of i was trying to provide for my family we came into this job over our heads and and it just got worse that's uh it's an explanation it's inconsequential as far as i'm concerned because uh you you have brought misery upon these folks so i you know one of the i guess one of the biggest question is how are you going to pay that back how is that going to happen yeah [00:20:15] Speaker 4: so what our what our hope is our plan is is when i start working next week we're going to take uh at least 500 from our from our um our check in a month to put that towards restitution as well as in a few months we'll pay off one of our cars that we've had for a while and that 500 payment will also go it's instead of going to play the car it will go directly to pay restitution um and so we're hoping from anywhere from 500 to a thousand dollars a month um to to go towards paying it back and i'll do as i'll do as much work as i can um to do extra work weddings political events you know drive for amazon flex everything um i'll work hard to to financially pay and i know that i can't restore what i've broken [00:21:09] Speaker 3: it uh two two things within the last half hour lead me to question whether you really take responsibility for it first you're talking about you know you know the process by which that you implemented to steal their money you know what the process was apparently were pretty good at it because it went undetected for a while okay and so you know how much you took you know the you know the ballpark of what you took it wasn't five or ten thousand okay so you you seem to want to minimize the depth of your attack am i wrong or am i right sir i don't want to minimize i don't want to minimize it at all i know you maybe you don't want to but you seem to be consciously subconsciously you're you're talking about you know a couple hundred bucks once a month or twice a month that don't add up right don't add up not even close to add none right and you know they mr gidley didn't come up with 58 thousand 271 dollars and 21 cents a forensic audit by bci came up with that number through the books through the objective look at the books so you seem to want to minimize this is as to the amount on the one hand as mr williams your attorney indicated and the pastor indicated and your wife indicated and you indicated you don't want this theft to define you right this isn't uh this isn't walking in a uh a business on the spur of a moment and robbing a place this is a thought out concerted effort as mr williams indicated a theft an opportunity that was presented to you that you worked for quite a period of time before it all imploded how much of that money did you pay back i haven't i mean when you were working there your intent was to pay it back so in the context of when you were working there how much did you pay back i don't know how much i [00:23:47] Speaker 4: know that i did put cash back i don't know the amount and it sounds stupid i wasn't even tracking it um so i didn't look at it now it's like how would you know how much um exactly um but i did put cash back inside of that there were small times where i would use my own credit card to pay for things [00:24:08] Speaker 3: um for the business um but how do you reflect that in the quickbooks entries now the i say that again how would you reflect that payback in in quickbooks so because i assume i i don't know how quickbooks works okay but i presume that that that that that software is to make it easier to track things so you're not writing on ledgers all the time yes they probably like they were in 1975 okay i presume it's easier so there's a way to track things so how did you how what did you do with [00:24:46] Speaker 4: the system to record these paybacks or credit card payments so for as far as the cash goes so i've got a drawer full of cash you know from bays or whatever and then when i run what's called an end of day um whatever cash i'm depositing into the bank i take those transactions um in that in that um middle software and that adds up to what goes into quickbooks so nothing comes into quickbooks unless you tell it to from the center um software so does that make sense no but it doesn't matter if [00:25:23] Speaker 3: it makes sense because whatever is purchased it doesn't automatically people are paying for so whatever is purchased for 25 there should be a corresponding payment of 25 right yes sir there's an indication of what was purchased right yes sir okay so if you're if you throw back another 50 bucks because you're feeling bad that day in cash what was the corresponding purchase so the thing is when [00:25:51] Speaker 4: someone say someone says 25 cash at the store it doesn't go into quickbooks unless that center software it goes in that center software and it says 25 if i click that 25 then that goes into quickbooks now that's recorded so if if there's if i've got 100 bucks that i'm going to deposit then in that center software i can click 100 cash and it comes into quickbooks and it matches that hundred dollar deposit [00:26:23] Speaker 3: okay how much do you figure you paid back i don't know sir uh ballpark for me how much you figure well first of all how often did you pay back not very often okay but a half a dozen times a dozen times [00:26:39] Speaker 4: two dozen times what maybe six times okay and when you paid back how much generally were you paying it was a small amount maybe a hundred two hundred dollars at a time [00:26:52] Speaker 3: okay okay see i don't know that i believe you when you say that it's true sir i promise look listen i don't know i'm just telling you that i don't believe that okay okay anything else you want to say no sir it's total thank you as i previously stated there is a joint [00:27:13] Speaker 1: recommendation for a period of community control sanctions here based on the level of the offense and the fact that the defendant doesn't have any prior criminal history it's difficult in situations like this where a defendant doesn't have anything prior in their past but the offense that they committed is serious it's severe it's repeated and it's continual that we need to balance that lack of criminal history with the harm that he caused the defendant was in a position of trust as mr gidley stated he was trusted by this business and he had access to funds he caused serious emotional mental and economic harm to mr gidley and everyone that worked for the company everyone that trusted him and because of that and because of his calculated and intentional and repeated behavior over months there's a punishment element here that certainly needs to be met because of that the state is requesting that the defendant serve a period of local incarceration and that it be a substantial period because his actions were substantial the restitution amount here is 58 257.21 that's more than the defendant's yearly salary was working for this company that's the amount of money that never made it to the bank so if the defendant gave some money back or put some money back that means that what he took originally was higher than that 58 000 number i know that the defendant stated today that based on the lifestyle he lives he doesn't think there was any way he took more than 10 to 12 000 the state provided his own bank records as part of discovery in this case his phone bank records showed that over that near 10 month period of time he was going to his own bank sometimes daily and deposited over 36 000 in cash to his own account that's what made it from his hands into his bank there's 20 more thousand in cash that never made it to the business account and the defendant used for his own personal gain based on all this the state believes that a jail term is necessary to protect the public and others from this offender and to punish him for the crime that he committed thank you thank you i reviewed the [00:29:27] Speaker 3: pre-sentence report the victim impact statement i have listened to mr williams those who spoke on his behalf mr gidley listen to the attorneys and i have considered all the provisions in 29 29 11 29 12 and 29 29 13. there is no good resolution to this case i could send you to prison for 18 months and you can have a judgment for 58 257 and 21 cents that would uh that would leave mr gidley chasing that money the rest of his life i can put you on probation with the idea that you're going to pay back the restitution okay now regardless whether i take route one or route two that that that will never make mr gidley or that business whole even if you wrote a check cashier's check for that full amount today that doesn't put them in the position they were in and nothing ever will nothing ever will okay and the problem here mr williams is that you're a manipulator now you certainly from the time you went to work for mr gidley you were a manipulator because you manipulated him the entire time you lived there or worked there okay the entire time little by little you manipulated him his family in that business and i mean you shake your head no that you didn't you did okay there's clearly you did you found a way to get away with what you got away with to the tune of 58 000 bucks for a substantial period of time and then when when when you were called on it by mr gidley your response was to go back to try to manipulate records retroactively okay so the entire time you work at that place of employment you were a class a manipulator and as i sit here and listen to all this today and particularly you you're still manipulating because you talked about an amount that you didn't think was anywhere near that but this title just indicated there was an influx of 36 000 in cash to your bank account during this time period okay so you know felt full well what you did and you try to minimize it now and and that sir is not taking responsibility that is trying to parse things which means you're evading responsibility okay so now whether you were a manipulator before that i i don't have the slightest idea okay my guess is you were this wasn't a sudden behavior that you learned when you went to work for mr gidley okay so my guess is to some degree and in some sense you've been manipulate people for a good long time so now now now the question is what's the appropriate punishment the the only thing the only possible thing positive that you can do going forward for the benefit of of mr gidley and that business is to pay them back the money you stole but like i said that that ain't the half of it okay they're devastated for the remainder and there's no way around it okay and boy it didn't it didn't take long for you to destroy what have been built up and i don't know that you i don't know that you grasped that you grasped that before you walked into it or you grasp it now or you'll ever grasp it you know because you and and and your wife and and the pastor are focused on your redemption i think mr williams or somebody early on said that uh for me to give you the opportunity to redeem yourself i ain't in the redemption business okay it's not my thing okay so so in consideration of uh of everything i'm going to accept the joint recommendation of uh council i'm going to place you on community control for five years you're going to serve 180 days in the lake county jail with credit for two now i am going to permit you work release and the only reason i'm going to permit you work release is to pay them back because they have to get paid back it's the only justice they can get from this case is to get paid back you're going to have no drugs or alcohol and you'll be screened regularly you're to pay restitution in the amount of 58 257 dollars 21 cents to the victim and you're the one that suggested that you're going to pay it back of uh of at least 500 a month currently possibly up to the fountain so in the in the immediate future i'm going to order that it be at the rate of 500 a month which i'm going to review because you are going to do this by work release but we will review that order we'll review the uh the amount of that order we had a hearing that'll take place on october 28th and we will review it periodically to ensure that progress is being made there's no realistic possibility absent some unusual happening that you're going to pay back 58 257 dollars and 21 within 10 months you have no no contact with the victims nor cause anybody to have any contact with them all your dealings with restitution will be made to the probation department you are to uh maintain throughout this period of community control full employment you're going to pay the cost of supervision fees mr randazzo any other terms you think are applicable yes you are going to get the mental health evaluation and follow all recommendations mr williams do you understand the terms of your community control yes sir do you have any questions about them no sir if you violate the state will file a motion to terminate your community control and if i find you violated then you face potentially 18 months in prison do you understand that yes sir [00:36:35] Speaker 1: is there anything else uh miss tuttle your honor uh would you like me to put that next court date in [00:36:41] Speaker 2: the order yes okay nothing thank you mr williams uh just as it relates to the work release your honor obviously mr williams had indicated uh there are a number of jobs he's working would this be specifically to his primary source of employment as a bus driver you're going to have to give me [00:36:57] Speaker 3: places of employment in times of employment and the order will be fashioned uh in consideration of those things okay all right all right [00:37:18] Speaker ?: all right all right all right all right all right