A Forsyth County grand jury has indicted Brian Thomas Hieber, of Forsyth County on allegations he stole money from a local law firm and Cub Scout Pack.
Per the Feb. 8 indictment, Hieber is accused of violating the state’s racketeering influenced and corrupt organizations act, or RICO, and unlawfully acquiring access to currency, money or property of law firm Jarrard & Davis, LLP and Cub Scout Pack 254 for a period from April 2017 to November 2019.
He also faces two counts each for theft by taking and identity fraud.
Information in the indictment said between May 2018 and November 2019, Hieber took “currency having a greater value than $25,000” from Jarrard and Davis’s account at SunTrust Bank and “a greater value than $5,000” from the Cub Scout troop’s account with Citizens Bank of Georgia between April 2017 and May 2019.
Authorities were initially alerted to Heiber’s alleged improprieties in August 2019 when a representative of Cub Scout Pack 254, contacted the sheriff’s office concerning a former volunteer treasurer, Hieber, who was allegedly refusing to turn banking information over to pack leaders and may have been embezzling or misusing money from the group, a sheriff’s office incident report states.
In November 2019, as detectives worked to investigate bank records from Pack 254, an additional report was filed with the sheriff’s office by representatives of Jarrard and Davis, who alleged that Hieber, the firm’s CFO, had been stealing funds from the company for over a year.
“Through the investigation by our High-Tech Crimes Unit, we were able to connect the two cases,” sheriff’s office spokesman Cpl. Doug Rainwater said at the time.
According to representatives from Jarrard and Davis, Hieber was hired as CFO in March 2018, had sole access to the firm’s payroll and accounting software.
“Between Mr. Hieber’s date of hire and his fire date of [Nov. 8, 2019], he had given himself unauthorized pay raises, did not pay medical insurance costs, and provided himself with an unauthorized 6% [retirement plan] match,” the report states.
After these two cases were connected, investigators were able to form a joint investigation of Hieber’s alleged activity, seizing his bank accounts and securing warrants for his arrest, according to Rainwater.
According to Rainwater, the Georgia RICO Act is applied to “criminal enterprises” where multiple crimes are taking place at the same time against multiple victims.
In a previous statement to the Forsyth County News, Cub Scout Charter Organization Representative Patrick Bell called the incident unfortunate and said that since the allegations have come to light their organization has altered its procedures to ensure it will not happen again.
“It is always unfortunate when one uncovers suspected wrongdoing, such as theft of funds, and especially difficult when the victim is a scout unit and church,” Bell said. “Since this was initially uncovered, church and scout leadership have instituted new policies and procedures to ensure this issue will not occur in the future.”
