Oran police officer resigns amid accusations of timecard fraud

ORAN, Mo. -- The son of the Oran police chief has resigned his position as a part-time police officer for the city amid accusations of timecard fraud.

The accusations were raised by two women with current or past ties to Oran city government: former city clerk Debra Phillips and Cindy Seyer, wife of Alderman Neal Seyer.

Gregg Ourth

But police chief Gregg Ourth, the town's mayor and other officials in the small community have dismissed the accusations as unfounded.

The police chief, who ran unsuccessfully for Scott County sheriff in 2016, said, "There is absolutely nothing to these allegations."

He called the accusations "vindictiveness" on the part of Phillips and Cindy Seyer.

A special meeting

The issue was discussed at a special meeting of the town board April 26.

Phillips and Seyer asked aldermen to request the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigate the matter. Seyer said the patrol would do the investigation at no charge to the city.

The board went into closed session, where it voted against requesting an investigation. The vote was 7-0, with alderman Neal Seyer abstaining, according to board minutes.

Cindy Seyer said, "I feel there is a huge cover-up. This whole thing just stinks."

Phillips said she raised the issue three years ago when she was city clerk and subsequently was fired for doing so.

She said Ourth hired his son, Jason, as the city's only other police officer in February 2014 without seeking board approval or going through the regular hiring process.

Phillips said then-Mayor Tom Urhahn and Gregg Ourth told her to put him on the payroll. Phillips said she objected to the hiring, calling it nepotism.

Several aldermen also questioned the hiring, but Urhahn said the decision had been made, Phillips recalled.

A timecard issue

Phillips said Jason Ourth did not clock in or out while working as a police officer.

She said the police chief, who is salaried, clocked in his son's timecard, then manually would write in clock-out times.

Phillips, who handled payroll, said the police chief threatened her after she raised the timecard issue with him.

"He told me, 'You just better mind your own business,'" she recalled.

Phillips said Gregg Ourth told her to keep quiet.

"He said, 'If you go and say anything to anybody, I will choke you out and you will be done here,'" she quoted him as saying.

Phillips said Jason Ourth was being paid for hours he did not work. She and Cindy Seyer said they have not seen him patrolling in the city's lone police car.

"The only time he was in the patrol car was the day they hired him," Phillips said.

Phillips said she raised the timecard issue with Mayor Urhahn shortly before his term expired. She said he told her to take it up with the new mayor.

Gary Senciboy was elected mayor in April 2014. Phillips said she discussed the issue with Senciboy.

A short time later, in May 2014, she was terminated. Senciboy said he replaced Phillips with Urhahn.

'No-brainer'

Senciboy said it made sense to hire the retiring mayor as clerk.

"That was a no-brainer," he said.

Phillips said she believes she was terminated and Urhahn hired to cover up the timecard issue.

Senciboy said Urhahn's hiring had nothing to do with the timecard issue.

"I had the opportunity to hire the former mayor as my city clerk, and I would have been a fool to have not done it," he said.

According to the mayor, Jason Ourth, who lives in Benton, Missouri, worked the night shift at the Oran Police Department and was performing "undercover" work. Senciboy said that is why residents did not see him driving the patrol car.

The mayor said Jason Ourth's surveillance activities involved "watching places here in town and other things."

The accusations "blew his cover" and led to his resignation, Senciboy said.

Jason Ourth's resignation, which was accepted by the board, leaves the police chief as the town's only law-enforcement officer, the mayor said.

Senciboy said the allegations made by Phillips and Seyer are false.

"We have nothing to hide," he said.

The mayor said he, Urhahn and the police chief knew about the surveillance work, but the aldermen learned about it last month, when the issue surfaced at the special meeting.

Alderman Neal Seyer said he abstained on the investigation motion to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest because his wife Cindy had raised the issue.

But Seyer said he favored the idea of asking the Highway Patrol's division of drug and crime control to investigate the issue.

As for the mayor's statement Jason Ourth was working undercover, Neal Seyer called it "just a front."

'We never saw him'

Neal Seyer said there is no evidence Jason Ourth ever worked as an officer for Oran other than the timecards.

"I would say 90 percent of the town didn't even realize he was part of our police staff here," Seyer said.

"He was on the payroll and we never saw him," the alderman said.

At the closed-door meeting in April, the board voted unanimously on a motion that stipulates the police chief is in charge of hiring and firing of police personnel, directing and conducting undercover investigations and making full use of available resources to the department.

The motion said the police department has operated this way in the past, but Seyer said the motion was amended at the suggestion of city attorney David Summers to bar the chief from hiring family members without board approval.

Seyer voted for the motion, along with the rest of the board, meeting minutes show.

Phone messages left for Jason Ourth by the Southeast Missourian were not returned.

Phillips and Cindy Seyer said there has been a pattern of timecard fraud involving Jason and Gregg Ourth.

Years ago, Gregg Ourth was terminated as a part-time officer in Oran by the police chief for timecard fraud, Phillips said.

"He was clocking in and then going home, and he wasn't actually working," she said.

But Alderman Gil Roslen, who has served on the board for more than two decades, said, "To my recollection, that never happened."

'No criminal intent'

Roslen said he doesn't believe there is any wrongdoing this time, either.

"There is no criminal intent," he said. "Had I believed there was criminal intent, I would have voted for an investigation."

Jason Ourth worked as a Benton police officer from July 2007 to May 2012, according to a document obtained by Cindy Seyer through the Missouri Sunshine Law.

Ourth resigned from the department, citing health concerns, she said.

But Seyer said a source with ties to law enforcement told her Jason Ourth was found to have engaged in similar timecard fraud while a Benton police officer before he left that department.

Cindy Seyer obtained copies of Jason Ourth's timecards from the city of Oran through an open-records request.

But in a written response to her request for additional records, Oran officials said they had no records regarding any reimbursement receipts for expenses incurred while Jason Ourth worked "undercover," no log journals or notes about cases he was working on, no reports on cases or calls he answered, and no records about any arrests he made or police work he did that resulted in an arrest.

Phillips and Cindy Seyer said they plan to continue to press for an investigation.

Cindy Seyer said the city paid $60,000 to $70,000 to Jason Ourth over the past three years combined. If Jason Ourth was not working for the city during that time, he should be required to make restitution, she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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