BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — A man has been arrested after police say he stole more than $800,000 in 2016 from the Boulder Valley School District after pretending to be with the construction company doing work for the district.
Sherifdeen Mogaji, 39, faces the following charges:
- Felony theft
- Computer crime
- Forgery
According to an arrest affidavit from the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, the accounting services director for the school district notified authorities after receiving a phone call from Adolfson & Peterson Construction Company in September 2016 asking for payment on the account.
The director said they had last heard from the company more than a month prior when the company had asked if they could change the way they received payments from the school district, the affidavit says.
The district told the caller, who was only identified as Brad, that he needed to complete appropriate paperwork before the change could be made.
The form was returned with an authorized signature with a first name that matched the company's CEO, but the last name was not legible, the affidavit says.
The district, on the day they contacted authorities, learned the construction company never sent a request to change payment, according to the affidavit.
The district said four payments were made to Mogaji totaling $852,733.83 after the change form was processed.
Records show Mogaji used ATMs, made wire transfers and wrote checks to himself for cash. He also wired money to a bank account he owned in Nigeria and spent $31,000 on student loan payments.
Authorities were able to recover about $480,000 making the total loss from the district $371,933.32, the affidavit says.
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