Last week, the Utah Attorney General’s Office filed a formal criminal complaint charging the county’s former chief corrections officer with two second degree felony level theft counts.
Dated Jan. 30, the affidavit of probable cause supporting the felony level criminal complaint outlines the cash handling process in place at the Carbon County Jail when the thefts purportedly occurred.
The affidavit points out that county corrections officers collected bail monies for arrested subjects and commissary cash for inmates serving sentences at the jail.
After counting the money, the funds and bank deposit slips were placed inside envelopes.
One of Robert F. Krajnc’s official duties as the jail commander involved transporting the envelopes and depositing the money into the county correctional facility’s bank accounts.
Starting on or about May 2002, the affidavit contends that Krajnc removed cash from the envelopes and never deposited the funds into the county jail’s commissary or bail accounts.
Instead, the defendant purportedly kept the cash for personal benefit.
The affidavit of probable cause contends that the discrepancy between the cash received at the jail and the amount of money deposited into the inmate commissary account registered at $9,800. With regard to the missing cash bail revenues, the affidavit estimates that $5,930 in revenue was collected, but never deposited.
Filed Jan. 30 in the 7th District Court, the formal criminal complaint charges Krajnc with one second degree theft offense in connection with the missing inmate commissary revenues along with an additional second degree theft offense in connection with the missing bail funds.
Last Thursday, Krajnc appeared before Judge Lyle R. Anderson to answer the felony level criminal information. The court allowed Krajnc time to secure legal counsel and authorized the defendant’s own recognizance release from custody after being booked into the county jail on the theft counts.
In the second step of the criminal adjudication process, the district court will conduct a preliminary hearing to allow the prosecution to present the state’s case against the defendant.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the court will weigh the sufficiency of the evidence presented at the criminal proceeding and issue a ruling on whether to bind Krajnc over to answer the second degree charges at trial.
Pursuant to state statute, the maximum penalties imposable in second degree felony level criminal convictions include a sentence of not less than one year nor more than 15 years in the Utah State Prison along with a $10,000 fine.
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