THOMAS R. MIHALEK
WESTFIELD – The chairman of the city’s License Commission, Thomas R. Mihalek, has resigned his position.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik said Friday afternoon that Mihalek resigned “shortly after he was down at booking” Wednesday afternoon.
Mihalek, 45, of 94 Falley Drive, was booked about 2 p.m. Wednesday after he was arrested for three counts of larceny of property valued more than $250 by a single scheme and 14 counts of uttering a false check by detectives Todd Edwards and Brian Freeman.
The charges stem from allegations made in April by Mihalek’s three siblings that he unilaterally liquidated a jointly owned investment fund without the knowledge and consent of the other three owners of the fund and deposited all the assets, $69,652.86, into his own accounts.
Edwards, an investigator for the financial crimes unit of the Westfield Police Department’s Detective Bureau, reports in a statement filed in Westfield District Court in support of an application for a criminal complaint that he spoke with all three of the victims who told him that they had not known until early this year that the fund established by their father to benefit his four children had been liquidated in 2008 and 2009.
All three siblings told Edwards that they had not received any benefit from the fund and one of Mihalek’s sisters told Edwards that her brother admitted forging his siblings’ names to the checks resulting from the sale of the fund’s assets.
Mihalek was arraigned on the 17 charges Thursday in Westfield District Court and was released on $500 cash bail.
Knapik said that the license commission will continue to function as the two remaining members, John R. Gaudrault and Christopher Mowatt, will constitute a quorum.
Knapik said “I believe I will have to appoint a chairman” but said that he has not yet considered which of the incumbents he will appoint to the position.
He said he has no immediate plans to fill the vacancy on the commission.
The commission is next scheduled for an Oct. 3 special meeting to consider two one-day liquor licenses requested for charitable fund raising events scheduled before the commission’s next regular meeting on the second Monday of the Month, Oct. 8.
