A nasty divorce and sales from the trash. Probe reveals questionable spending by utility
It began as a minor investigation into accusations involving a husband and wife and lover about stealing and selling on eBay.
Now, it’s a case that involves lack of oversight of the Florida Keys largest electric utility, leading to almost $100,000 in spending on unneeded tools, according to police reports.
Tools were being thrown into the Florida Keys Electric Cooperative’s garbage bin in Tavernier that were either questionably damaged, slightly damaged, or under lifetime warranty, the documents show. At least one lineman was taking the tools out of the trash and making thousands of dollars selling them on eBay over the past three years, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office probable cause affidavit.
Detectives filed the grand theft and dealing in stolen property probable cause affidavit against the employee, Christopher Zischka, 42, in early January.
But the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges because, although probable cause existed, not enough evidence did to prove that Zischka actually stole anything, Assistant State Attorney Gail Conolly told detectives.
After a three-month investigation that included questioning top FKEC officials and employees in charge of issuing equipment, detectives were unable to conclude Zischka broke the law when he took and sold the equipment because there was never a company policy in place saying he couldn’t.
“There’s no policy in place about taking stuff out of the dumpster. There’s no expectation of ownership of garbage,” Zischka’s attorney John Agnetti said. “And, there was no scheme between my client and the warehouse manager to place tools in the dumpster so my client could take them out and sell them.”
But the investigation did show that the utility was spending thousands of dollars in rate payer’s money to replace tools and equipment that could have been replaced for free because they were under warranty or that didn’t need replacing to begin with.
The FKEC fired Zischka , a lineman with the utility, in December because he “admitted to profiting from the resale of FKEC assets,” his Dec. 8 termination letter reads. He is in the arbitration process with his union to try to get back on the payroll, Agnetti said.
“I have yet to determine why my client was terminated,” he said.
Utility spokeswoman Nikki Cullen responded Wednesday morning in an emailed statement that “FKEC does not comment on internal employment issues.”
It all started with a nasty divorce.
In October, detectives started looking into accusations that Zischka, who was dating the estranged wife of a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant, sold some of the cop’s belongings on eBay in October, a matter for which prosecutors ended up declining to pursue criminal charges.
But something else piqued the detectives’ interest.
While looking at the Zischkas’ eBay account during the original investigation, they noticed that he had been selling utility tools online from August 2015 to October 2018.
In that time, Zischka had 87 listings on eBay for lineman’s tools and he made almost $7,000 selling them, according to the sheriff’s office report.
“It was discovered that Chris worked as a lineman for the Florida Keys Electric Cooperative, and it was possible that the tools being sold had been stolen from Chris’s employer,” Detective Benjamin Elmore wrote in his report.
When detectives brought the matter to the utility’s chief operating officer, John Stuart, and acquisition director Walter Stephens in November, Stephens confirmed the tools were the same “brand, model and style” as equipment used by the utility, according to Elmore’s report.
Stephens told cops he had suspected there was theft at the FKEC because “they had spent over $90,000 on tools year to date which was abnormal,” Elmore wrote in his report.
“Walt told us that you just can’t go to the hardware store and buy those tools — they were specialty tools that were specific to their business,” Elmore wrote in his report.
Stuart asked the sheriff’s office to open a criminal investigation on Nov. 15, according to the report.
The utility did not respond to questions about whether it suspected anyone else of selling tools and how much it typically spend on tools every year.
Elmore subpoenaed information from both eBay and Paypal about Zischka’s online history. He discovered Zischka first listed tools on eBay on Aug. 30, 2015. Out of the 87 he listed, he ended up selling 82 for a total of $6,484. 56, according to Elmore’s report.
Elmore showed Stephens a list of the items Zischka listed, and Stephens told the detective “all the items on the list with the exception of the linemen’s boots were the brand/model/type bought by the Co-Op and stocked on their trucks,” Elmore wrote.
Zischka told police in December that he sells tools he finds in the FKEC dumpster. He refurbishes them before listing them on eBay. He said the tools at the utility are “dielelectrically tested by an outside vendor, and if they don’t pass muster, “or are otherwise damaged,” the utility throws them away,” according to Elmore’s report. He said he sold at least 25 pairs of one brand of wire cutter.
Zischka said he’d been doing this for years with the permission of the FKEC’s store keeper — the employee who issues gear. After Hurricane Irma in September 2017, a new store keeper took over, and Zischka told detectives he continued the practice with her permission, according to Elmore’s report.
Stuart and Stephens denied Zischka’s claim that FKEC tools were “dielectrically tested,” and told detectives each tool should have lasted about 10 years in service with the Co-Op, according to Elmore’s report.
“Walt said some of the tools had lifetime warranties and should not have been discarded at all,” Elmore wrote.
The FKEC initiated a policy in October 2017 that no tool should be thrown away without the store keeper verifying they were no longer useful, Elmore stated in his report. It is not clear what prompted that policy.
On Dec. 5, detectives questioned the first store keeper. He said he’d been working at the utility for 19 years. He said the policy for handling damaged or worn-out tools changed about two years ago and again in November 2018, Elmore wrote in his report.
Under his former supervisor, if a tool was deemed “junk,” it would be thrown away. Under the new rules, damaged or older tools are placed on the workbench to see if they can be salvaged or if they can be replaced under warranty, he told detectives.
This means for years, tools that could have been replaced for free were thrown away and the utility bought new ones.
One of the tool brands FKEC uses, Klein, has a lifetime warranty. Yet even Klein tools were regularly thrown away, Elmore stated in his report. Under the November policy change, every Klein tool considered damaged or worn must be “inspected for abuse when it is turned in,” according to the report. .
“If the tool was not abused, it would be replaced under Klein’s lifetime warranty,” Elmore wrote.
Zischka sold 54 pairs of Klein wire cutters in three years. That’s five times more than what had been stocked in FKEC trucks during that same time period, according to Elmore’s report. The store keeper said he was sure he hadn’t thrown away that many, Elmore stated.
The store keeper denied knowing that Zischka was selling the tools and told Elmore he had never received compensation from Zischka.
That store keeper was replaced sometime in 2018 by his supervisor. She sent an email out in to staff in April 2018 stating all damaged Klein tools were to be sent to her so she could send them to the company to be repaired or replaced under warranty.
By November, she told detectives that she still thought too many tools were being replaced too often. She persuaded Stephens to start a new policy that no tools of any brand were to be replaced without her permission.
The criminal investigation into the selling of the tools remained separate from the divorce battle that opened the door to the probe, but specters of both dramas crossed paths. Zischka’s ex-wife sent him an undated text message through eBay, which was included in Elmore’s report, where she taunted him about the investigation.
“I totaled up the amounts of your sales in the last year (all of which I screen shot) and congratulations.... you have soared right past misdemeanor and slid squarely into grand theft. I bet you must be proud,” she wrote.
This story was originally published February 28, 2019 at 7:16 AM.
