Employees screw up frequently. They fall for phishing attacks, or click on links they shouldn’t click on. And in some cases, funds get wired to fraudulent accounts. But how often have you read about an employee having to replace stolen funds?
WKBN in Ohio reports:
A Trumbull County judge has ordered County Auditor Martha Yoder to pay $80,857.18 to Bazetta Township after the township’s tax funds were mistakenly deposited into a fraudulent bank account.
The ruling follows a cyberattack in August 2024, when hackers infiltrated the township’s fiscal officer’s email and posed as officials to redirect where the township’s tax revenue should be sent. The auditor’s office failed to verify the request and sent the money to a fraudulent account at Green Dot Bank.
According to court documents, Bazetta Township filed a petition for a writ of mandamus, arguing it had a clear legal right to the funds. The court agreed, stating that the auditor has a mandatory duty to distribute tax revenue, regardless of the cybercrime.
Read more at WKBN.
So the town couldn’t sue the auditor for negligence, so they filed a petition for a writ of mandamus. Clever lawyering. But now where/how is the auditor going to be able to do that?