A former Utah Transit Authority employee was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail and has been ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution after he pleaded guilty to stealing over $300,000 in funds from the authority.
David Leroy Healy, 54, began working as a fare-equipment maintenance worker for UTA in 2014. In September 2019, a neighbor reported to authorities that Healy repeatedly carried buckets from his UTA vehicle into the garage of his home, and would then convert the large amounts of coins to cash at a Walmart exchange machine.
UTA police investigated the allegations in mid-September 2019, and observed Healy removing fare boxes or coins from parked buses at two of the authority’s bus garages, court documents state.
Days later, Healy exchanged nearly $800 of coins at a local credit union, and employees told detectives the man made “frequent” coin deposits.
Investigators found that Healy’s bank records revealed nearly $300,000 in cash deposits to three credit union accounts since 2014, the year he was hired. Those accounts saw a significant increase in deposits starting in late 2018, sometimes involving thousands of dollars in separate deposits over the course of one day.
Healy previously pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony charge of pattern of unlawful activity and a third-degree felony charge of misuse of public funds, according to a release from the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office. He was initially also charged with a count of money laundering and six additional counts of misuse of public money.
Part of the plea agreement includes restitution for the stolen money, which amounts to about $2,319,846 in accounts from three different financial institutions, the values of two vehicles, a coin collection, a Ruger revolver and Healy’s UTA pension.
“Public Institutions belong to the people. In this case, a government employee violated the public trust, that trust has been restored and the defendant held accountable in court,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said in statement.
“The purpose of government is to do good and provide a service, it is not a personal piggy bank for a dishonest employee,” Gill’s statement continued. “I would like to thank the attorneys, officers, and citizens who worked to ensure justice was done.”
