Auditors for Wiscasset’s 2008 finances who have completed investigation of missing funds said it would have been impossible to detect in past audits.
“No person on earth could have discovered it,” said CPA Ron Smith of RHR Smith & Co.
Smith and two of his employees met with selectmen and the budget committee Wednesday principally to go over the 2008 audit, but selectman Phil DiVece asked him why it was not discovered during previous audits?
Local citizens have been asking about it, DiVece said.
“I am in full defense of my company,” Smith said.
Auditors had to pour over financial statements starting from 2002 on through October 2008, when local law enforcement arrested Town Clerk Sandy Johnson and charged her with theft by deception. The town discovered the fraud by happenstance last October.
“Your system was willfully manipulated,” he said.
Smith said the money was taken bit by bit over that time period amounting to about $56,000 starting in 2005 through June 2007. More was missing after, but Smith could not divulge any more information out of concern for the case.
Last Tuesday, Smith told The Lincoln County News the auditors obtained all of the information necessary for the District Attorney’s case, which awaits grand jury review some time next month.
“You have a procedure in there which enables you to catch something now,” he said. “But there is a fundamental flaw in the software.”
