A Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company store manager in Florida confessed to creating false purchase orders for Polk County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office vehicles and signing deputies’ names on forms in order to boost his sales statistics, according to a release from the Sheriff’s Office.
In March 2013, the PCSO Fleet Services received an invoice from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for items the PCSO did not purchase. The company is a former vendor for the PCSO, but the PCSO has not used the company’s services for some time. Upon receiving the invoices knowing no work had been commissioned, detectives were asked to investigate.
Detectives learned that Todd Hannum, a manager at Goodyear, had created the invoices in an effort to inflate his sales statistics but had not sent them to the company’s collection department. While Hannum was on vacation, a corporate auditor located the PCSO invoices, and not realizing the invoices were fictitious, forwarded them for collection. While detectives have yet to determine if any actual property was removed as a result of Hannum’s fabricated invoices, they said they learned that Hannum had systematically defrauded his company using past customers’ personal identification.
Over the course of approximately 14 months -- Feb. 1, 2012, through April 1, 2013 -- Hannum credited more than $2,000 to his personal credit card with chargebacks (return of funds), according to the release. Detectives learned the credit card used for the chargebacks belonged to Hannum’s mother and was used by Hannum alone. A warrant was issued for Hannum’s arrest.
On Thursday, Aug. 1, PCSO detectives met with Hannum. During a post-Miranda interview, Hannum confessed to conducting the chargebacks and obtaining the money on his mother’s Goodyear credit card and confessed to creating the purchase orders for the Sheriff’s Office vehicles and signing deputies' names to the forms.
Hannum is charged with scheming to defraud, grand theft, and two counts of money laundering. He was booked into the Polk County Jail, according to the release.
