Inside LBM crimes don’t pay for Michigan man

A former employee of Durst Lumber & Ace Hardware has landed a big date in court.

The Berkley Public Safety Department reported that Andrew Maurer, 21, of Macomb Township, Mich. was arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $76,000 from the dealer, located roughly 17 miles north of Detroit.

According to a report from CandGNews.com, Durst Lumber alerted police to missing funds after another employee recognized several inconsistent credit card returns totaling $2,331.95 and linked to an ACE Rewards account belonging to Maurer.

“(The returns) seemed in excess for a certain time period over a couple days,” Berkley Public Safety Detective Lt. Andrew Hadfield told CandGNews. ‘They started looking into it and realized … the returns were being processed by an employee to his personal account. So they were able to identify a little bit of what they thought was going on in regards to it.”

After investigating the former information technology employee, officials found that Maurer began his alleged embezzlement scheme in July 2017 and continued through February of this year. 

Essentially, Maurer was processing returns to an account for purchases that were never made. Police said that he racked up several thousand dollars in imaginary returns each month dating back to 2017.

A police report states that Maurer admitted to stealing the funds and explained to authorities how he did it. The alleged crime includes more than $14,500 in 2017, $31,591 in 2018,  $11,765 in 2019, and more than $18,400 in 2020. The scam totals $76,307 taken from Durst Lumber over the span. 

Maurer was arranged on June 17 and has a pretrial appearance in court scheduled for July 1.