Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A fraudulent scheme involving a check issued by the Erie County Clerk’s Office for over $325,000 has been resolved.
The check was issued in 2022, and was to be paid to a state mortgage agency. Instead, it was intercepted in the mail.
The check was forged and redirected into a bank account in Maryland.
After a criminal investigation, the U.S. Secret Service informed Clerk Mickey Kearns on Wednesday the money has been secured and is being returned to Erie County.
"I want to thank the Secret Service and all agencies that worked to recover the money," Buffalo Councilman Mitch Nowakowski of the Fillmore District said on WBEN on Thursday.
"But the problems with the Clerk's office are multifaceted," he said. "The missing check was one piece. I called for a forensic audit with the Erie County Comptroller because of the discrepancy of the mortgage tax that was being dispensed to the city of Buffalo and other localities."
Nowakowski said Comptroller Kevin Hardwick sampled some of the numbers from the Clerk's office in 2022 that showed a trend of the city being underpaid. He believes that's enough evidence to point to the need for a full scale audit that goes back into previous years.
"We need to see if this mechanism for collecting mortgage tax is working or if the city has been underpaid for more years. I want to see this audit go back even before Mickey Kearns was Clerk. We feel it could go back 10 years," he added.