NILES – Last week’s court action included guilty pleas in a high profile embezzlement case involving two former employees of the municipally-owned Southeast Berrien County Landfill.
Former landfill general manager Clyde “Sonny” Fuller III and landfill maintenance employee Terry Snow were in Berrien County Trial Court Wednesday morning for status conferences. Both were charged with embezzlement over $100,000 and conducting criminal enterprises and had been set to go to trial next month.
Both men were terminated by the public-owned landfill board in July. The two were arraigned on two felony charges each in mid-December. Fuller and Snow set up a shell company and funneled money to it from the landfill. Those payments totaled nearly $250,000 between December 2016 and June 2017.
Landfill board member and Niles Township Trustee Herschel Hoese testified in January that he had concerns about large payments to an unknown company and asked the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department to investigate.
Snow has agreed to pay $25,000 at the time of his sentencing and forfeit $66,000
police found and froze in the shell company’s bank account. He will also give proceeds from the sale of a 2012 Dodge truck he owns toward restitution.
During his plea before Berrien County Trial Judge Charles LaSata, Snow spoke of a “scam” Fuller had set up and admitted to receiving some of the embezzled funds.
During his plea, Fuller admitted to receiving $45,000 from Snow for work that was not performed. He claimed that Snow had set up the shell corporation.
Both are scheduled to be sentenced May 21 before Judge LaSata although Fuller’s sentencing could be delayed due to his efforts to sell property to make restitution. For his part, Snow has agreed to report to jail April 11 to start getting credit of time served toward his prison sentence.
Fuller and his attorney, Sean Drew, said he will be selling a 2007 Ford Mustang he owns as well as two rental homes he owns in the city of Buchanan and wants to do that prior to his sentencing.
He was sentenced to 30 days in jail last month for contempt of court for violating his bond conditions by being in contact with a female under age 17. He was observed at the Niles-Buchanan YMCA March 3 and 7 while females under age 17 were present.
The plea agreement reached in the case calls for two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, all involving a student, be dismissed, that no additional charges involving the victim in the case be filed and that no prison be recommended.
The charge DeBoer pleaded to carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The
original charges he faced carried maximum penalties of 15 years in prison for the third-degree criminal sexual conduct and two years in prison for the fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
The incidents occurred between April and June, 2017 while DeBoer was a volunteer softball coach at Brandywine and the victim was a 17 year old student who played on the team.
By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
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