ATM theft alleged in Maryland

A St. Mary's judge ordered Wednesday that a man who worked servicing automated teller machines be held in lieu of $20,000 bond on charges that he stole that amount from a bank's machine in Mechanicsville. Michael Clark, 39, of Temple Hills protested that he now has been charged three times from the September 2007 incident at the Bank of America branch along Three Notch Road, including two circuit court indictments.
"How can I be charged twice with the same thing?" Clark asked the judge during this week's bond hearing. "It's the same indictment, except this time they added embezzlement."
St. Mary's detective Thomas Hedderich filed initial district court charging papers alleging that Clark, working in 2007 for NCR Corp., took $20,000 that the bank's employees had put in the machine to provide extra funds for customers during the Labor Day weekend.
The bank employees put the money in what they thought was a storage bin in the machine, so an NCR employee later could load it into the withdrawal section, court papers state, but the funds put in by the bank workers actually caused a malfunction in the machine.
NCR's records showed that the machine was accessed with Clark's key, court papers state, and the bank employees discovered that the money was missing when the bank reopened after the holiday. Clark was fired from NCR during its inquiry into the matter, according to charging papers.
St. Mary's Assistant State's Attorney Frank Cubero said this week in court that Clark has "numerous felony convictions" including two burglary offenses and two convictions for the possession of cocaine, and that Clark recently was in prison in Virginia for violating his probation in a burglary case.
The charges against Clark were refiled this year after new information was obtained, Assistant State's Attorney Daniel White said after the court hearing. "NCR provided the results of their internal investigation," White said, "and based on that, we developed additional evidence and recharged the case."