Nov 18, 2008 9:50 pm US/Eastern
Camera Catches City Workers Drinking, Stealing
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Cemetery Superintendent Donald Griffis, right, and foreman Paul Hamm are seen enjoying a long lunch at a Jamaica Plain pub.
WBZ
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Paul Hamm allegedly filled his gas tank nearly every week at a pump meant for city vehicles.
The grounds of Mount Hope Cemetery are by all appearances well kept. But in back, at the gas pump where city cemetery vehicles are fueled, a tipster told investigators they'd find a problem.
The tipster said foreman Paul Hamm was filling his own tank with the city's gas.
So the Boston Finance Commission, a city watchdog agency, staked it out.
"Sure enough, he was stealing fuel from the city facility every Thursday night for at least a period of five or six months," said Jeff Conley of the BFC. "Sometimes he took 15 gallons, sometimes he took 28, whatever it took to fill up his van. He had the key to the lock, was in control of the gas log and operations down there."
Conley said they know how much Hamm took because he kept track of it in the log books, claiming he was fueling city vehicles. But Conley said flags were raised because at least one of those vehicles couldn't have used the gas he claimed he was pumping into it. It ran on diesel fuel.
"There's a couple of things that allowed him to do this," he said. "No. 1, there were no internal controls. He was the sole person and his boss didn't supervise him."
In fact, said Conley, as he and a colleague began to watch Hamm, they learned that he and his boss, cemetery superintendent Donald Griffis, frequently took long lunches at a Jamaica Plain pub.
The investigators videotaped the pair having lunch and observed them on several other occasions.
"They spent two, two-plus hours there having lunch and drinks," Conley said. "It was a real lousy situation for the other employees, who, per our observations, were all working. And their bosses don't work."
Conley said Griffis earned more than $100,000 last year, and Hamm about $80,000. No longer. Conley said Hamm resigned and Griffis was fired.
"We didn't want that cancer to be contagious," Mayor Thomas Menino explained. City officials took quick action upon viewing the tape.
"To be drinking in the afternoon on city taxpayers' time is wrong, and so I didn't see any way to keep them on the job," Menino said.
Our efforts to reach Hamm and Griffis were unsuccessful.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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