MTM: Connor bilked company of more than $500K
Maine Today Media says its former CEO, Richard Connor, improperly took more than $500,000 from the company between June 2009 and October 2011.
Lisa DeSisto, the new CEO of the state's largest newspaper group, told employees in a letter Wednesday that Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. in December paid the company $537,988.68 under an employee theft insurance policy in connection with a list of expenses Connor billed to the company.
The Portland Press Herald, MTM's flagship paper, reported that Connor denied the latest charges and similar charges he faces from his previous employer, the Pennsylvania-based Wilkes-Barre Publishing LLC.
Peter Bennett, an attorney representing Connor, told the paper that his client doesn't deny spending the money but argues that it was not spent for unauthorized personal use. After resigning from MTM in 2011, Connor found a job as CEO of Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, N.H., where he currently works as a part-time consultant, the paper reported.
MTM attorney Tom Fitzpatrick told the Bangor Daily News that the company has no plans to pursue legal action against Connor and that any lawsuit to reclaim those allegedly stolen funds would come from the insurance company.
Fitzpatrick told the Press Herald that MTM decided to pursue compensation through its insurance policy rather than legal action because it seemed a more reliable way to recover the funds and the company desired to put the matter to rest.
The reported misappropriation of funds came at a difficult time for the company, when layoffs and other cutbacks took place. DeSisto declined to tell a reporter for the paper whether the company is profitable but said the company is meeting its budget goals for 2013, which she characterized as an investment year.
In her letter to employees, DeSisto listed Connor's expenses for which the company was paid by its insurer:
- $287,224.78 in unauthorized salary increases and bonuses
- $90,381.32 in unauthorized personal expenses charged to MTM company credit cards
- $70,352.49 in unauthorized payment of personal American Express card bills with MTM funds
- $36,089.74 in unauthorized compensation for and use of company automobiles, including the purchase of a new Chevy Suburban for his son three days after he started at MTM.
- $22,940.35 in unauthorized hand-written checks drafted by or at the direction of Connor for items including home landscaping, personal dental work and a $6,000 Camden vacation rental.
- $16,000 in unauthorized use of company funds to pay for another Camden vacation rental.
- $10,000 in an unauthorized wire transfer to Richard Connor
- $5,000 in claim expenses
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