Former parking supervisor accused of stealing $170K from Mayo Clinic

A former Mayo Clinic employee has been charged with stealing more than $170,000 from the organization between September 2015 and March 2016.

Timothy Stafford, 47, is accused of taking cash collected by parking ramp attendants and redirecting it for personal use while serving as the clinic’s parking and transportation supervisor.

He was charged Wednesday with 10 felony counts related to the thefts. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, a $100,000 fine, or both.

“This is a particularly egregious theft,” Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said Wednesday. “Not only is it a gross amount of cash, Mr. Stafford used his position of authority and the trust placed in him by his employer to take advantage. It appears that Mr. Stafford used his position to alter procedures and create an environment ripe for his actions.”

According to the criminal complaint, Mayo first began investigating the missing funds in January 2016 after receiving an anonymous complaint from employees. The staff who filed the complaint alleged that their supervisor, Stafford, was stealing money from parking ramp deposits.

While none of the employees had directly observed Stafford stealing the money, they had noticed “significant inconsistencies” between what was being reported on individual booth attendant deposit sheets and what was actually being deposited in the cashier’s office at Methodist Hospital.

They also became suspicious when Stafford began “tucking larger denomination bills under deposit envelopes held close to his body in what appeared to be an attempt to hide them,” the complaint says.

Mayo investigators eventually went into Stafford’s office and found $1,450 in cash rubber-banded together, along with other loose cash, 400 Riyals from the Qatar Central Bank, various jewelry items, and 29 credit cards.

They later discovered that during the period of the alleged theft, Stafford had added a new garage to his home, purchased a camper with a listing price of $80,000, leased a new truck, and bought other “significant assets.”

When confronted about the allegations, Stafford “denied taking any money and was vague and evasive when pressed for details regarding the cash counting process that he designed and for which he was responsible.”

The case ultimately wound up in the hands of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The matter was turned over to the Rochester Police Department and the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office late last year.

Stafford is expected to make his first court appearance next month.

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