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Project manager accused of thefts

By MICHAEL A. MOHAMMED
Published December 14, 2006

TAMPA - Robert Todd Dollar spent 3 1/2 months stealing more than $87,000 before someone noticed, investigators said.

As a project manager for Turner Construction, Dollar, 45, cashed checks that clients wrote to Turner and then told his boss the clients never paid, said company owner Scott Turner.

Dollar, of 630 Druid Hills Road in Temple Terrace, also double-billed construction jobs to Turner and used the extra materials for side jobs. He often did these extra jobs while being paid to work at a Turner job site, and he pulled in Turner personnel to work on them.

Turner said they caught on when Dollar cashed a $7,600 check from a client. When someone investigated, the client said they had never heard of Turner Construction.

It turned out that Dollar had done the work under the name of his failed former company, American Construction Experts.

"He got sloppy. They all do it - it's classic," said Hillsborough Sheriff's Office Detective Howard Lopez, who arrested Dollar on charges of grand theft and fraud.

Not even Dollar realized how much money he had stolen. Lopez said when he told him how much he'd stolen, Dollar was shocked.

In addition, much of the work Dollar oversaw during his eight-month tenure with Turner had been so badly done that the company will have to rebuild it.

One project, Turner said, will cost the company $20,000 to fix, in addition to the money Dollar is accused of stealing.

What bothers Turner the most is that Dollar had been making $75,000 a year, an excellent salary for his position. "To be taken advantage of at that extreme level ... it's a pain," he said.

Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mmohammed@sptimes.com or 813 226-3404.

[Last modified December 14, 2006, 06:07:50]