City worker stole $20K in parking meter quarters

• Marc Corsmeier stole $20,000 in quarters over about 8 years from his City of Cincinnati job.

Marc Corsmeier stole $50 in quarters every week from the City of Cincinnati for about eight years.

Now, he has to repay the money but he won’t be using quarters – the city seized $20,000 from his city pension to pay for the theft.

Corsmeier, 56, of Loveland, pleaded guilty to theft in office and was placed on probation by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge John “Skip” West who also ordered Corsmeier to repay the money.

Suspicion on Corsmeier, who worked in the city’s parking collections office, initially came not from the city but the owner of a convenience-type store Corsmeier frequented.

“He would pay in coins all the time,” Assistant Prosecutor Andy Berghausen said after Monday’s sentencing. “The guy at the market knew he worked at the city.”

When another customer, who the store owner also knew worked for the city, next came in, the store owners asked if he knew Corsmeier and mentioned paying bills with coins.

The other employee looked Corsmeier up and was alarmed that the man who paid bills using quarters worked in the parking collections agency. The other employee contacted city officials, Berghausen said.

A supervisor began walking through Corsmeier’s work area frequently and noticed Corsmeier always had a gym bag nearby. On one trip through the work area, the supervisor noticed coins in the bottom of the bag. That’s when he called police who installed hidden cameras.

They stopped Corsmeier leaving work one day and found the gym bag full of coins. He quickly confessed and said he’d been stealing about $50 per week in coins, estimating he’d stolen about $20,000. That means he was stealing money for about eight years.

Corsmeier was hired by the city in 1980 and worked in its finance/treasury department until the end of 2007 when he transferred to parking collections. His job there was to place the coins collected from city parking meters in bags and take the bags to the bank.

He pleaded guilty to theft in office, a crime that prevents him from working for the public again. He was placed on probation for three years. Corsmeier was placed on leave after his arrest and no longer works for the city.