UTA employee stole $300,000 from fare boxes, charges say

FILE - A UTA bus and TRAX train move through Salt Lake City on Tuesday, April 4, 2017.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah Transit Authority employee accused of stealing more than $300,000 from UTA bus collection boxes now faces criminal charges.

David Leroy Healy, 54, of Taylorsville, was charged in 3rd District Court Tuesday with engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, or in the alternative, theft, a second-degree felony; money laundering, a second-degree felony; and seven counts of misuse of public money, a third-degree felony.

The charges mark the second time in less than a month that a UTA employee has been charged with stealing funds — namely coins collected as ride fare — from the organization.

Healy, who was employed as a fare equipment maintenance technician, collected buckets of coins and cash from bus fare boxes and deposited the money into his own accounts, according to charging documents.

Investigators learned that Healy has three bank accounts and has made $297,969.50 in cash deposits since 2014, the charges state. They also learned that in 2016, Healy took out a car loan for $15,120 at a bank and paid it off 13 months later. During that time, his savings account balance increased significantly, according to the charges, and included several deposits in December of thousands of dollars, sometimes on the same day.

Healy’s deposits into that savings account increased from more than $16,000 in January to more than $44,000 in March, the charging documents say.

Police say the investigation began when a witness observed Healy take large buckets of coins into his house, and later exchange them for cash at a local store. Healy allegedly told a cashier that he owned an arcade.

UTA police began following Healy and observed him entering parked buses and removing fare boxes, according to court documents.

On Sept. 18, investigators questioned one of the credit unions after Healy made a deposit of nearly $774 in coins. A credit union employee told police that Healy “makes frequent coin deposits,” the charges state,

He was also observed depositing $1,600 in $1 bills at one bank, and $800 in $1 bills at another, the charges state.

A $50,000 warrant was issued Tuesday for Healy’s arrest, claiming he “made cash deposits exceeding $300,000 with money unlawfully obtained from UTA.”

Last month, former UTA employee Jason Vaughn Guest, 37, of American Fork, was charged in 3rd District Court with engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony, and five counts of misuse of public money, a third-degree felony, for allegedly stealing approximately $71,000 from the company since 2014.

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