By DEBRA HAIGHT
Special to the Niles Daily Star

Niles City Councilman William Weimer testified that former SMCAS Executive Director Tim Gray was someone he trusted and someone who he thought was doing a good job, during the second day of Gray’s embezzlement trial Thursday at the Berrien County Court in Niles.
Weimer was chairman of the SMCAS Board of Trustees for several years. Gray was the SMCAS executive director from 2009 to 2014 when he retired.
He is on trial on a felony charge of embezzlement over $50,000 and less than $100,000. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Gray is accused of taking money, an estimated $100,000 or more, from the service between 2009 and mid-2014 through excessive payments he did not deserve for paid time off, holiday pay, dental and vision reimbursement and short term disability.
The trial began Wednesday, with current SMCAS Executive Director Brian Scribner on the stand for a full day of testimony. Weimer was the third witness called Thursday, with jury members hearing from two former SMCAS office employees in the morning.
Weimer said he has known Gray since the defendant was 17 and a new emergency medical technician. Gray worked for SMCAS for over 25 years, progressing through the ranks from being an EMT, to a paramedic, to an operations manager and finally to executive director.
He also spent a few years working for the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department.
“I thought it was a good idea to hire him as the director, [as] he was very good at what he did,” Weimer said. “He had the skills to do the job and have things run smoothly.”
Weimer said he had no reason at the time to not trust Gray, and noted that it was not the board of trustees’ role to “micromanage” the staff. He noted Gray and other office staff would give him checks to sign and he would do so, often without asking many questions.
Assistant Prosecutor Gerald Vigansky showed Weimer a series of checks he had signed over a five-year period that gave Gray thousands of dollars in compensation for vacation and personal days Gray had not used.
“There were five checks in five months totaling more than $16,000 that went to Mr. Gray, are you surprised by that?” Vigansky asked.
“Yes,” Weimer replied. “It is a rather high number.”
In testimony Wednesday, Scribner reported he first became concerned that something was wrong in the fall of 2014, a few months after Gray retired. He said he discovered a “pretty significant number of checks” written to Gray when he started looking at the check registry of how much different vendors were being paid.
His testimony also touched on other elements of the prosecution’s case, including the excessive amounts Gray received for holiday pay compensation, vision reimbursement and dental reimbursement, as well as the salary Gray continued to get while he was on short-term disability from November 2013 to February 2014.
“He was receiving a salary and short term disability at the same time,” Scribner said. “It appeared to me that there had been some unethical activity.”
Gray’s trial is expected to last at least through next week. Others scheduled to testify include Buchanan City Manager William Marx, who is on the SMCAS board, and forensic auditor David Marshall.