An administrator of a Utah nursing home has been charged in an embezzlement and money laundering scheme, his alleged crimes only discovered after he’d quit to work for a new company.
Timothy Scott Claybaugh, 36, faces two counts of money laundering and three counts of theft after police say he spent about $250,000 dollars pilfered from Stonehenge of Orem.
Court documents outline how Claybaugh charged a company credit card for personal items ranging from groceries to flowers to materials for a basement remodeling project. Those charges amounted to a “staggering $148,794.11,” over two years, officials said.
Suspicion first arose when other employees discovered — after he had resigned — that Claybaugh had reimbursed himself with $62,000 in company checks recorded in an accounts payable system.
“This was alarming and unusual because an administrator should not be issuing checks to himself and signing them without corporate approval,” according to charging documents cited by television station KSL. “This further lead to the discovery of a massive number of fraudulent and personal expense charges on (accounts payable) reimbursement checks made payable to Timothy.”
Authorities said their investigation showed Claybaugh also had stolen about $18,700 in petty cash and bought 416 gift cards valued at nearly $30,000 for possible trips to New York, Costa Rica and Disneyland.
Claybaugh was in charge of finances at the facility in Orem, about an hour from Salt Lake City. Stonehenge offers long-term care and skilled rehab in seven locations across the state. Marketing materials for the Orem location note the company’s philosophy is guided by the “golden rule.”
