Former Croton Fire Chief Sentenced for Stealing $300,000 from Dept.
A former Croton-on-Hudson Fire Department chief and treasurer was sentenced to prison Wednesday for stealing more than $300,000 from the department.
Gerald “Gerry” Munson, 64, who also worked as a Croton police officer in the past, was sentenced to one-and-a-half to four years in state prison for grand larceny in the second degree as a crime of public corruption. He pled guilty to the charges on September 12.
The court also ordered Munson to pay restitution to the Fire Department. At the time of his plea, Munson paid $124,383 in restitution, in addition to the $25,000 in restitution that he paid upon his arraignment. At sentencing, the court issued an Order of Restitution for the remaining restitution balance of $149,383.
As fire department treasurer, Munson was responsible for maintaining the Croton-On-Hudson Fire Department bank account and financial records despite having no prior qualifications or background in accounting or financial matters. The felony complaint alleges that he used his position as treasurer to steal and conceal his theft of approximately $312,925 from the Fire Department, according to the Westchester District Attorney’s Office.
The money he stole included portions of the so-called “2 Percent Money” paid annually to the Fire Department by New York State in connection with the state’s two percent tax on fire insurance. For years, Munson was able to conceal his ongoing theft by altering and manipulating the department’s bank records. Those alterations and manipulations included his underreporting of the amount of “2 Percent Money” received by the department in order to balance the books and hide what he stole for himself.
In February 2018, members of the Fire Department’s internal Audit Committee discovered that Munson had provided them with false 2017 bank statements. When confronted by the Audit Committee, Munson admitted he had created the false statements on his home computer; that he had stolen money from the department’s account for his own personal use; and that he had used the Fire Department’s debit card as if it were his own.
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