Criminal past of guardian revealed

One of the caretakers for missing girl Rilya Wilson has been convicted of embezzlement.

©Associated Press
June 14, 2002

MIAMI -- One of the caretakers of a missing 5-year-old girl was convicted of embezzling from a former employer, court records show.

Geralyn Graham worked as an accounting clerk at Jartran Inc., a truck and trailer rental company in Miami, when she was arrested in 1982 and charged with grand theft for stealing $8,526.

Investigators are scrutinizing Graham's criminal background in their investigation into Rilya Wilson's disappearance.

"These are things we have to consider," said Miami-Dade County police Detective Ed Munn.

Rilya lived with Graham, who claims to be her paternal grandmother, and Graham's half-sister, Pamela, from April 2000 to January 2001. That's when Geralyn Graham claims she gave Rilya to someone who identified herself as being from the Department of Children and Families.

The little girl was supposed to receive monthly state visits, but her caseworker had stopped visiting the home, while turning in reports saying she was staying in touch. Consequently, her disappearance went unnoticed for 15 months and wasn't reported by DCF until April 25. The caseworker has been fired.

Since Rilya vanished, Graham's criminal past has cast doubts on her credibility.

She has used at least 33 aliases and has a long history of criminal and civil court cases, according to court records. In Tennessee, she was sentenced to two years in prison in 1985 for food stamp fraud. Graham's lawyer, Edward Shohat, said his client's past reflected "a difficult time in her life, but it's not relevant to the disappearance of Rilya Wilson."

Shohat said Wednesday that Graham is cooperating with investigators, including interviews and background checks. Graham and her half-sister failed a polygraph test administered in May.

"Nobody has ever suggested that Geralyn Graham was anything but a perfect mother," Shohat said. "There's not a single element in the story that she told that has been proven wrong, so far as I know."

Besides reviewing DCF files and talking to DCF workers, police are interviewing immediate family members to try to determine whether they have been telling the truth about Rilya.

"Just because she has a criminal history doesn't mean she's trying to pull the wool over our eyes now," Munn said. "But that's something we have to strongly consider."

In her conviction in the embezzlement case, Graham admitted to finding a "loophole" in the company's accounting system, records show. She forged travel order drafts with other employees' names and cashed them in for herself between July and October 1982.

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