Audit Reveals More Details on Alleged Misuse of K-9 Account

BROOKVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – The Jefferson County Commissioners heard the results of an independent audit of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s K-9 Account that had been connected to an investigation into the alleged misuse of funds by former Deputy Kyle Pisarcik.

Previous reports on exploreJefferson.com said that Jefferson County Sheriff Carl Gotwald Sr. was preparing the K-9 Account for an audit when the purchases did not seem to line up with the paperwork.

“As soon as I heard about [the purchases], I knew what was coming,” Gotwald said at the Jefferson County Commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday.

The money was raised to buy Iron, a K-9 Officer, and allow Deputy Pisarcik to be his handler. The fund was created to support only the purchase of a dog and all costs related to the dog.

Gotwald questioned Pisarcik, who initially said he did not know why the paperwork did not line up with the expenditures. However, he later admitted to having financial problems and making the checks out to himself. Pisarcik resigned as a deputy.

The audit determined that Pisarcik, referred to as “Dog’s Handler” in the report, took out $10,844.00 in questioned costs. Since $4,866.00 was refunded by the dog’s handler prior to December 31, 2018, $5,978.00 remained.

The firm of Zelenkofske Axelrod LLC of Harrisburg was tasked with analyzing expenditures from the K-9 Account from May 17, 2017, through December 31, 2018. Thirty-nine expenditures were made during that time, and nine expenditures were questioned.

Cory Johnson represented the firm at the regular meeting of the Jefferson County Commissioners. Commissioners Jack Matson, Herb Bullers, and Jeff Pisarcik were present. He explained that he has worked with over 30 counties and has seen similar situations where a fund is managed outside of the county’s central structure. He also cited a line of county code that stated that counties without a controller should have the county commissioners control each transaction in all county funds.

The K-9 Account, however, had its own structure. The sheriff’s office established the account as part of the office’s operations instead of the county’s general fund. The commissioners were not required to sign off on any expenditures from the K-9 Account, only the dog’s handler, the sheriff, and chief deputy sheriff were needed to sign off on checks.

“This is where dangerous things happen,” Johnson said. “The purpose of central control is that the commissioners sign off on the checks. Every fund should run through central control. It’s better for transparency.”

Sheriff Gotwald came to the commissioners’ meeting and spoke during the public comment section.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he began. “But the system was set up for Iron the same way it was set up for Brett. We used the same system.”

Iron is the name of the police dog covered under the fund. The system was set up to purchase another police dog over a decade ago, so Gotwald felt that using the same structure would work in this modern case. When the commissioners asked to bring the K-9 Account under the commissioners’ control, that was done.

“This wasn’t to keep it out of county control,” Gotwald said. “But looking at what happened, you can see it did because of no control. It was an unfortunate situation of trust and no oversight.”

Zelenkofske Axelrod also contacted the businesses where Deputy Pisarcik said he made the purchases. They were able to obtain invoices from those businesses and determine that the paperwork submitted about those purchases were faked. The purchases came from Shallow Creek Kennel, Haag’s Feed Store, and two purchases from Leerburg Enterprises totaling over $2,000. Those were linked to unpurchased online shopping carts. A patrol rifle was purchased and never seen by the sheriff. Pisarcik refunded the account for the rifle and the Leerburg invoices as additional purchases for equipment.

Commissioner Jack Matson also questioned Sheriff Gotwald on the purchase of software licenses through the K-9 Account. Gotwald said that a judge used the software but did not pay the maintenance fees. He felt that the software was better, reducing workloads down to two hours from two days. It would be used by the K-9 officer, so he purchased the software out of that fund. The county commissioners had denied his request to purchase the license before. Matson brought this point up during the public comment section. Gotwald said he did not do anything wrong.

While Gotwald said that he simply followed the way the account was structured when used in the past, the overall findings of Zelenkofske Axelrod were that the county should bring all funds under central control, making the process more transparent.

Pisarcik’s case was transferred to the Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas after he waived his preliminary hearing on May 2. The case continues to work its way through the system.

The Jefferson County Commissioners will have their next regular meeting on July 9 at 10:30 a.m. All county offices will be closed on July 4.


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