Man accused of stealing $266K from local business

A Bear Creek man was arrested last week after being accused of stealing $266,000 from a local business over a period of six years.
James Harold Moody, 49, 215 Frederick St., Bear Creek, was arrested and charged with first-degree theft of property on Friday, Franklin County Sheriff Shannon Oliver said.
According to Oliver, Moody had reportedly been embezzling money from Franklin Homes, where he worked as the comptroller, since 2006.
Oliver said as comptroller, Moody had been in charge of the company’s finances for a period of 10 years.
Oliver said company officials had been unaware of any embezzlement that had taken place until an assistant was hired to help Moody with the company’s finances in 2011.
Oliver said the assistant discovered a discrepancy between the company’s financial ledger and the checks that were written from the company’s accounts.
He said the discovery was made in November.
“When the discovery was first made, company officials said they terminated Mr. Moody immediately and tried to work with him on their own to get him to repay the funds,” Oliver said, “but when he failed to follow through with what they had agreed on, the company officials alerted authorities and we began our investigation.”
Oliver said the sheriff’s office investigation started earlier last week. He said when his office was made aware of the accusations, investigators went to Moody’s residence and arrested him following questioning.
“The company gave him plenty of time to try to work with them, but when he didn’t take advantage of the offer, company officials knew they had to turn it over to authorities, especially since it was such a large amount of money that turned up missing,” Oliver said.
Oliver said Moody was allegedly writing himself extra payroll checks and making checks payable to himself that he did not list in the company’s financial ledger.
“The company is still going through their financial records, so the amount of funds missing could be more than the original $266,000 as the investigation continues,” Oliver said.
“This is just a sad situation. This man worked for the company for 20 years, and it’s a shame someone who has worked for the company so long would do something like this.”
Moody is currently free on a property bond.