Georgia Briefs – Dec. 10, 2014

ATLANTA (AP) — A former payroll director for the Grady Memorial Hospital Corp. has been convicted of stealing nearly half a million dollars from the hospital.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta says 55-year-old Donald Thomas embezzled more than $480,000 by falsifying extra vacation and severance pay for terminated Grady employees and depositing the money in his bank account.

Prosecutors say Thomas oversaw payroll for all 5,500 Grady employees from January 2008 to 2011. Prosecutors say he added additional money to the terminated employees’ payroll records and then replaced their bank information with his own.

The scheme was discovered when a terminated employee contacted payroll staff to say her tax form showed more money than she’d earned.

Thomas is set to be sentenced on Feb. 25.

Georgia Tech police seek suspect in assault case

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Tech police are seeking a suspect accused of assaulting a female student on the Atlanta campus.

The woman told authorities that she was walking behind Brittain Dining Hall near Williams Street Northwest around 5:45 p.m. Monday, when the man approached her from behind and reached under her skirt and touched her.

Police at the Georgia Institute of Technology said in a campus safety alert that the suspect was last seen heading westbound on North Avenue in a red pickup truck.

He’s described as a white man in his 40s, with short blonde hair, wearing a gray, long-sleeve, button-down shirt with dark-colored lining and gray pants.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that his vehicle is described as a red pickup truck with a black toolbox in the bed.