THOMAS R. MIHALEK
WESTFIELD – A Westfield city official was arrested Wednesday for misappropriation of funds after his siblings complained to police that a family investment fund had disappeared.
Det. Todd Edward of the financial crimes unit of the Detective Bureau at the Westfield Police Department, said Wednesday that he became involved in the case after family members contacted the department because they believed that their brother, Thomas R. Mihalek, 45, of 94 Falley Drive, had liquidated an investment fund, established by their father to benefit his four children, and had kept all the proceeds.
Mihalek serves as the chairman of the city’s License Commission.
Edwards said that he learned that Mihalek had been the liaison between the family and the accountant who handled the account and apparently was in a position to issue instructions about the account.
Edwards said he interviewed Mihalek’s three siblings and was told that the siblings had been content to leave the account dormant, regarded it as a source of funds to be available in case their father’s needs changed.
But, when they realized that they had heard no mention of it for a long period, they wondered how it was doing. They told Edwards that, when they started to look into the matter, they found that the account had been liquidated without their knowledge and consent.
The siblings told Edwards that their brother had been designated the contact person with the accountant handling the fund since it had been established locally by their father and the other siblings are dispersed across the county with two living in distant states -Texas and Wyoming.
They told Edwards that they found that, in late 2008 and early 2009, checks totaling about $70,000, which liquidated the assets in the account, were sent to Mihalek.
Edwards said that he was told that the checks were made payable to all four siblings and the three complainants asserted categorically that they had not signed the checks. They provided Edwards with copies of the checks which bore the four needed signatures
Edwards found 14 checks had been cashed and the funds had been deposited to Mihalek’s own accounts.
Mihalek has not been charged with forgery but he has been charged with 14 counts of uttering a false check. In addition, he was charged with three counts of larceny of property valued more than $250 by a single scheme.
Edwards said that, on Wednesday, he and Det. Brian Freeman went to interview Mihalek.
He said that, although Mihalek did not know that his siblings had been in contact with police, “he wasn’t surprised.”
However, Edwards said, Mihalek made references to a lawyer when he spoke with the detectives so no actual interview was conducted.
Mihalek was taken into custody and arrested.
He was released on $500 cash bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Westfield District Court.
