Ex-City Worker to Face Lesser Charge in Theft

Anew theft charge was filed on Wednesday against a former Glendale city employee accused of stealing nine tons of paving blocks from a city yard earlier this year.

Thomas J. Bowman, 46, a 21-year city employee who was fired in March following discovery of the theft, has agreed to surrender and face arraignment on a misdemeanor theft charge July 31, said Richard Jenkins, deputy district attorney.

Bowman originally was accused of grand theft, a felony charge, in the disappearance of 1,327 concrete paving blocks. However, a Pasadena Superior Court judge last week dismissed that charge after a city official called to testify was unable to say that the blocks were worth at least $400--the minimum valuation required by state law for a grand-theft charge, said Robert Cohen, a deputy district attorney in Pasadena.

Officials had said the blocks were worth more than $2,000 when new, but no evidence was given during a preliminary hearing of the value of the blocks when used, Cohen said. The charge was dismissed last Thursday by Judge Gilbert Alston.

Jenkins, who is assigned to the district attorney’s office in Glendale, said he decided to refile a theft charge as a misdemeanor.

According to a police report in March, the concrete paving blocks missing from a city yard were found at the rear of Bowman’s home in Glendale, laid out to form a 20-foot by 30-foot parking area.

Police began investigating the theft in January following an anonymous tip to city officials.

The blocks reportedly disappeared over a period of several weeks from a locked maintenance yard at the Scholl Canyon baseball fields. Officials said more than 100 employees have keys to the yard.

Nello Iacono, director of parks, recreation and community services, said the theft of city materials by an employee is the first incident of its kind that he can recall in his 12 years with the city.