SENTENCING FOR TIMOTHY GRAY DELAYED

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
NILES – Former SMCAS Executive Director Tim Gray will have to wait a few more
weeks to find out what his sentence will be for embezzling money from the
south county ambulance service. Gray was convicted of embezzlement over
$50,000 and less than $100,000 in mid-November.
Gray, 50, now of Claremont, Florida, had been scheduled to be sentenced Friday
but had the sentencing delayed when some undisclosed issues came up. He is
now scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, Jan. 19 at 10 a.m. in Berrien County
Trial Court in Niles.
Gray is also waiting to hear what Berrien County Trial Judge Angela Pasula’s will
rule on a post-trial motion his lawyer made last Thursday. Defense attorney
Michael Conkright wants to have a forensics expert examine SMCAS computers
in an attempt to recover allegedly deleted files that could help to determine the
amount of restitution owed.
Gray was found guilty Nov. 15 after a nine-day jury trial of taking money from
the ambulance service from 2009 to 2014 through excessive payments for paid
time off, holiday pay, dental and vision reimbursement and short term
disability.
Conkright told Judge Pasula that Gray received a package of SMCAS related
documents from an anonymous sender after the trial. “They appear to be budget
worksheets and final budgets for some years,” he said. “We need to be able to
ask whether any information still exists on the computers.”
He said that while the documents were sent anonymously, they correlate to
existing SMCAS documents. “We want to show that the information was
available and that if it was deleted from the computer, a forensics examiner
could find it,” he said. “We have good reason to believe that the information
existed on the computer.”
Pasula declined to allow the anonymous documents to be admitted into
evidence. She is expected to make a ruling on Conkright’s motion for post-trial
discovery at or before the Jan. 19 sentencing.
The only witness called to testify Thursday was current SMCAS bookkeeper
Cathy Ganus. Ganus has worked at SMCAS since January 2015 and has been the
bookkeeper since October. She was previously the Buchanan Township Clerk and
was also a member of the SMCAS board.
Ganus brought budget information for the years 2008 to the present as
subpoenaed by Conkright. In questioning by Conkright, she disputed his claim
that approval of the SMCAS budget amounted to spending authority for SMCAS
staff for items in the budget.
“That’s incorrect,” she said when asked whether the approved budget gave staff
the authority to spend money. “The budget is the forecast of the revenue and
expenditures for the year. It’s not carte blanche to spend money.”
Gray’s tenure at SMCAS goes back to the 1980s and early 1990s. He left to join
the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department where he worked as a jail guard from
June, 1995 to August, 1998. He received a Medal of Valor award after surviving a
brutal attack by two inmates on Oct. 1, 1996.
As reports from that time indicated, the two men cut through a steel cell bar
and used it to beat Gray, fracturing his skull and breaking his hand among other
injuries. Gray pretended to be dead and then staggered down a hall to get help.
He was later awarded the department’s Medal of Valor.