Regarding 'Theft By Deception' accusation in Ohio by ex-employer

[GenericCitizen]

Part 1 of 3

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What is the name of your state?
I live in the state of Ohio.

I apologise at this time if this post is too long or unnecessarily
detailed; I figure that the best advice can be provided if
all relevant issues are given in some detail, so I have
attempted to do just that. It is divided into multiple
sequential posts in order to avoid the length of post
limitation for this forum.

Any and all advice is appreciated. Since the matter involves
a felony, and therefore possibly imprisonment, I am extremely
interested in what folk here think about this situation.
If any more information is needed, please inquire here
and I shall provide any answers I can legally give.
Essentially, I am curious as to whether there is a legal basis
for the threat of charging me with 'theft by deception' here
in the state of Ohio. I have nearly no money left because
of this situation, and thus this post and a public defender
seem to be my only available possibilities for advice
and/or legal counsel.

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My employment began with <contract security company> around the end of the year 2003.

I submitted my application at the local office of the company. I was contacted by
their Human Resources department and they arranged for an interview not long after
I applied. My interview was done in two parts - one part conducted by <HR assistant>,
and the second part by <accounts manager>, the person who was then primarily in
charge of the company's local contract security accounts.

<accounts manager> examined my application and asked if I would be interested in being
hired as a 'Trainer', meaning I would be trained for the position of 'Training Officer',
which would in turn mean extensive education at a few selected account
sites, and then be the official training officer for any future employees that would be assigned
to those sites. In addition, I would gather the then-current paperwork, training materials,
and other site-specific details from each of my assigned site accounts, update the materials
as needed, and convert as much as possible into digital documents so as to make
future updates much more simple whilst also allowing for easier expansion of available
training materials

The assignments began with two site accounts and two scheduled for the future when the
first two were completed. First assignment comprised
<insurance company>, which is a site account encompassing three different buildings and approximately six full-time security
officers with some shifts picked up by part-timers; second was <local shopping mall>,
a small middle-class oriented business in the north-central part of this city that has
at least three full-time officers and odd shifts picked up by part-timers.

During the course of January through February of 2004, and then sporadically after that time,
I visited my first two assigned sites, met with the officers and client liasons, had myself
assigned to be trained in our company duties at those sites, and then gathered as much
site-specific data as possible, which I took home to get to work on the word-processing
and graphic design elements of my job.

My interaction with <accounts manager>, now my direct chain-of-command boss, was
infrequent but productive. He and I worked rather well together, and we made progress
on developing rough drafts of the aforementioned two accounts in regard to forming
training materials and site instructional materials in general. During those first few months of 2004,
the Officer-In-Charge at <insurance company> had to be fired
for various reasons, so I filled in for that position until a new
officer was found to be trained in the OIC role. I was also
assigned to do extra training at more of our client account
sites so that I would gain an excellent background in how our
policies and procedures were implemented across a wide range
of accounts. This included some of the state government office
buildings here in this city, another shopping mall, and a few
lesser accounts.

Around this same time (January/February of 2004), <accounts manager> told me that I
was being considered for a better position in the company. He said that this would
essentially be the same position he held (Accounts Manager), but on a smaller scale, in
that I would be responsible for just a few accounts. Basically, it would be an enlargement
of the duties I already held, with more responsibility so that <accounts manager> could
focus more on his other accounts as the company expanded local operations.

I was invited to be tested at our local office for the proposed promotion, and this was done
over the course of one morning shortly after <accounts manager> and I initially discussed
the possibility. Apparently the test results were quite acceptable, and <accounts manager>
informed me that I was to have a meeting with his superior <local corp. boss>.

I had the meeting, and it seemed to work out well enough.

This is the point where matters start to get a bid odd.

I never heard again about the 'offered position', and since I did not, I figured it had been
denied. Seemed to me that talking about it might bring about negative comments since
it *had* been denied for whatever reason, so I left the subject alone and kept on with the
work I already was doing at that time.

Over the course of the next year, my ability to communicate with <accounts manager>
became lessened. My e-mails to him were rarely returned, and when they were, they
mostly had a formulaic 'good work, keep it up' sort of feel to them, and were very short.
All requests for guidance on current and future assignments were ignored, or at least
the responses never came to my e-mail nor given via voicemail. My attempts to set up
meetings with <accounts manager> did not work. I did not start getting worried until
the beginning of autumn in 2004, when most of the work on my assignments was
completed and I needed immediate advice on what to do next. Communication
essentially ceased with <accounts manager> around December; I was unable to pin
him down anywhere in the course of his duties since those duties involved a great deal
of out-of-town work and visiting sites all around this city. Telephone calls and messages
left with our office secretary also proved fruitless. By November, I had mentioned to
<HR assistant manager> that my communications with <accounts manager> had ceased
to exist, and that in particular my e-mails were being ignored. She told me that the
e-mail addresses via our corporate server had changed, and that the old addresses
were *supposed* to forward mail to the new ones. I figured this was the root of the
problem, that my e-mails were getting lost along the way, so I tried calling more
often instead. Nothing resulted. <accounts manager> never answered, and messages for
him to call me resulted in nothing.

A week or so after discussing this with <HR assistant Manager>, I was asked by <HR manager> to come to the office. Since we had mandatory classes on 'sexual harassment in the workplace' scheduled for all of our local employees to attend during January and February (currently 2005), I assumed I was being brought in for a class. However, when I arrived at her office, she brought in a man I had never met before who was introduced as <unknown corporate employee> an older gentleman whom I assumed was from a different corporate office. <HR manager> then began to question me, with my full co-operation, regarding the nature of my work, the job description which had been given me by <accounts manager>, the nature and frequency of my communications with <accounts manager>, and other related matters. It was then revealed that <accounts manager> had been fired for gross incompentance and negligence' concerning his duties and assignments with our company. Further, the nature of my own employment was under scrutiny. According to what <HR manager>, told me, my position within our company had not been approved in its details by anyone other than <accounts manager>, that the position was unique within our company, that it was deemed to have never been something that would have been approved if it had been revealed in full to the rest of the office staff, including <local corp. boss>, and that my services were useless in the duties and assignments which I had been given by <accounts manager>. I was, in sum, told indirectly that my work was and is useless in practical application according to the judgement of the company now that the extent and nature of the duties was fully established and understood by the rest of the local office managers, and that my role within the company would be reviewed by <local corp. boss>. This occurred around Thursday, 27.January.2004.

 

[GenericCitizen]

Part 2 of 3

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Two things in particular were told to me during the meeting that sparked my
interest. First, I was informed that <local office boss> had, indeed, arranged with
<accounts manager> for follow-up meetings regarding the previously offered
promotion, but <HR manager> and I figured out that this was one of the matters
where <accounts manager> had screwed up and not passed on the information. This
was particularly galling since that told me they *had* been interested in promoting
me, and since they had hired someone else during the course of 2004 that filled the
position, the situation made more sense: <accounts manager> had screwed up there
as well. The second item of interest was something that was revealed as incidental
information: <accounts manager> has simply been fired, and his creation of my
position had not been authorized, so essentially I had done nothing of value for what
I had been paid to do for the company other than to be available as a Trainer for the sites
at which I had been trained as well as the occasional event when I filled in for
officers needing time off from a shift or two. Needless to say, I was a little angry
when I came up with this logical conclusion based on <HR manager's> information.
I was told that <HR manager> would talk to <local corp. boss> that same day, and
I would be informed as to what would happen in the immediate future.

Because of the nature of the information which had been provided to me during that
meeting, when I came home I reviewed my computer-based work for our company
over the course of the previous year, including my e-mails. Since the company, through
its representative in the form of <HR manager>, had told me that my work was
unauthorized, unapproved, and deemed extraneous, I deliberated for a while, then
decided to just go ahead and delete the work. There seemed to be no benefit in
keeping anything, and having it around would only serve to fuel anger and other
negative personal emotions in the current situation.

Around the time of 14:00 that same day, <HR manager> called me back and said
<local corp. boss> would want to meet me me the next day (Friday, 28.Jan.2005)
at 08:00... and that I should bring in anything I had worked on over the past year.
This, in truth, puzzled me greatly considering the nature of the conversation we
had just three hours ago, and I told her bluntly that since I was informed my work
was without value and of no use to the company, I had eliminated it. <HR manager>
then said to just bring in whatever I could, so I told her all I could do is bring in some
very old backup copies saved on CD discs. I then made copies of those materials
and set them aside for the meeting the next day. Of course, I made additional
backup copies considering the strange nature of the situation at that point.

<local corp. boss> had me come into his personal office, and we sat down to what
was, initially, a congenial discussion. He invited me to repeat what I had told
<HR manager> the previous day, and I then proceeded to outline, in detail, the nature
of what <accounts manager> had assigned to me to do. After about ten minutes of
this, <local corp. boss> interrupted my monologue and asked me to go more into
detail concerning the practical results of my work rather than the outline of what was
intended to be done. I then gave him a short overview of my progress, and when I had
finished, he began to explain the 'real' situation. He verified what <HR manager> had told
me regarding <account manager's> employment, firing, and the general reasons for it.
However, he presented something new. He explained that over the course of the previous
year, I had earned an income of approximately 26,000 dollars, (including taxes,
Medicare payments, et cetera) and that while my work was essentially unapproved
by the company, and in fact was hardly even understood by <local corp. boss>, since
I had eliminated the most recent copies of the work, I had little evidence to provide that demonstrated any kind of intent to produce work for which I had been paid. I explained
to him what I had understood from <HR manager's> remarks the previous day, particularly
how I was told that the work I had done was not of value and was not even authorised.
In addition, I mentioned again that part of my job description had beent to train
newly hired employees at some of our client accounts, which I had done during the
course of my employment. <local corp. boss> then countered that this was immaterial,
and that I had very little to show for a year's worth of pay. He said that the older backup
copies of the materials I had been working on were insufficient evidence of work performed.
(keep in mind that he had not yet even viewed the documents on the discs I had
brought to him; they remained untouched on the table at which we were sitting)
I gave up with patient reason at that point and bluntly explained a few key points
to <local corp. boss>:

1. I received my work orders and assignments from <accounts manager>, and
*only* from <HR manager>.

2. Those assignments *were* verifiable as the e-mails that <HR manager> had
happened to send with his corporate e-mail account were retrievable, though
other e-mails obviously were not since some were sent by him to me from
web-based e-mail accounts.

3. The assignments were given with no deadlines, no timeframe of expected results,
and very little guidance as to what was expected other than the end outcome of the
assignments as a whole for each site.

4. <accounts manager> had already been fired for 'gross incompentance and
negligence', and this apparently included nearly all aspects of his creation of my
position within the company, or rather the 'quasi-creation' since the position had never
existed in the first place according to <HR manager & local corp. boss>.

5. My employment with the company did not include any written contract or agreement as to
what my duties would entail *except* the verbal and e-mail based assignments that
<accounts manager> had given me and the standard one-page "this employment is at
will and can be terminated by either party at any time" employment agreement that
most hourly employees in the USA sign before beginning their job. This, combined
with the basic fact of not having any timeframe or workable deadlines for output along
with the sudden lack of any real guidance as to the nature of my work had been primarily
responsible for the current state of my provable job output, along with <HR manager>
informing me that the output was not approved nor desired in practical output. Further,
I had performed my other assigned duties without any problems.

6. In sum, with all these considerations, it should not be surprising that I was sitting in
his office with little justification for my employment, past and present, and that in fact
I was rather curious why *I* was the bad guy here since I had done exactly as I had been
told to do, whilst the person responsible for this state of affairs <accounts manager> had
simply been fired, nothing more.

<local corp. boss> became seemingly irate at that point. He ceased any attempt at
a veneer of polite verbal discourse, and bluntly explained that my points were of no
consequence in his opinion, and that I was now expected to do two things:

1. attempt to re-create as much of my work as possible within seven days, but with
no access whatsoever to the client account sites or to our company personnel relevant
to my work. So, I was expected to do this without being able to access the essential
parts of the places and the people necessary to re-create any work. (my at-home notes
are not really useful in this task since they are rather basic and they are already mostly
incorporated into what little of my work remains, and the rest was, as mentioned,
eliminated.)

2. pay to the company the sum of $13,000.00, which would be half of my
wages for the time in which I had been employed. This was explained as a 'giving me
the benefit of the doubt' sort of concession, since he asserted that the entire amount
could be demanded. Further, I was told that I was expected to provide this amount of
money within thirty days. This last part sounded fishy to me since I know that
there is a limitation of time in which a person may initiate legal actions between
when the actions supposedly occur and when the actions are considered still
prosecutable. I did not mention this thought out loud, though.

 

[GenericCitizen]

Part 3 of 3

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Both of these tasks, and their respective deadlines, are expected by <local corp. boss>
to be completed, and if they are not, he stated explicitly that he would initiate a criminal
lawsuit against me to regain the full amount of wages paid to me during the
course of my employment with the company. The legal term that he used for the
basis of the lawsuit was 'theft by deception', which, as I understand it, is a law
involving a form of fraud whereby a person receives money or other remuneration
whilst deceiving the provider of the remuneration as to what will be given in exchange
for the money (work performed, items produced, serviced provided, et cetera).

This seemed extremely odd to me, given what I know of tort and statute laws here,
which is, admittedly, nowhere near a lawyer's understanding, but I know a bit here
and there because I have been to college already as a criminal justice major and
the basics of statutes and case law was covered during the year and a half I
attended classes. The 'theft by deception' law seems to be a flimsy basis for
any kind of ridiculous attempt to, essentially, extort my wages from me. However,
I thought that occasion to be inappropriate for discussion of that puzzling aspect,
so I told him I would consider what he said. I did mention that I have almost
no savings, certainly little to no capital or collateral, very little equity, and no real
quantifiable credit rating for the purpose of gaining a large loan from any reputable
lender, so I figured the chances of raising 13,000.00 dollars within 30 days to be
extremely unlikely. <local corp. boss> simply repeated that this was what was
expected if I desired to avoid court proceedings, and that he desired to see me
within the first seven days for the work he thought I could manage to re-create for
him based on what I have here at home. I then left the office and returned home.

So. Opinions? Should I be worried or not? Ideas?

 

[GenericCitizen]

Anyone have any ideas or opinions?

 

[TCA]

You might try posting this under employment law as you will get more answers.

From everything I know about employment law (which isn't too much) legally an employer can not withhold or make you pay back wages earned while working for them. You said that they claim that your position wasn't approved, You was paying your salery? Was it being paid by the company via thier payroll or by the account mgr? Were you considered an employee of the company or as an independen contractor? An employer is well with in their rights to terminate your employment for poor perf. however they can't ask for their money back.

I would suggest that you start looking for a new job.