A former Gainesville Regional Airport employee was charged with stealing nearly $49,000 from the airport between April 2016 and March 2017, Gainesville Police said.
Paul Adjan, 65, worked as the airport’s facilities manager during this time and stole $48,702 from the parking lot payment machines he was responsible for emptying, according to an arrest report. He was one of two people who had access to all three keys required to take cash out of the parking machines.
Starting in April 2016, Adjan was responsible for collecting the money from the machines on Fridays and Mondays, police said. While he did place Friday’s collection in a safe inside the airport’s office so that it could be deposited, Monday’s money was not accounted for after being collected.
Police said the parking machine creates a time stamp each time the cash is pulled and, based on the security badge swipe-in logs, Adjan was the only employee at the airport each time — even on a day he was supposed to be on vacation, according to the report.
Adjan told police he did not steal the money, according to the report.
He was charged Feb. 5 with grand theft, money laundering and aggravated white-collar crime, according to court records. He was arrested Friday morning and taken to the Alachua County Jail, where he was released that afternoon on his own recognizance.
He could not be reached for comment.
Contact Robert Lewis at rlewis@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @Lewis__Robert.
Paul Adjan
