A former supervisor in the Glynn County Department of Public Works has been sentenced to federal prison and ordered to repay money he illegally gained from fraudulent charges to government purchasing cards.
William Harold Richards, 51, of Brunswick, was sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud, said Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood also ordered Richards to pay $422,168 in restitution to the Glynn County government and to serve three years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term.
There is no parole in the federal system.
“Taxpayers rightly expect employees of their government agencies to handle public money responsibly,” said U.S. Attorney Steinberg. “William Richards did the opposite by defrauding taxpayers and enriching himself at their expense, and he is being held accountable for his crime.”
As described in court documents and testimony, Richards was hired at the Glynn County Department of Public Works in 2010, progressing to a supervisory role that provided him with access to employee purchasing cards and the county’s billing system. In September 2023, the Glynn County Police Department and the FBI initiated an investigation after another Public Works employee noticed suspicious charges on his county purchasing card.
Investigators determined that Richards, who was responsible for coding and reconciling purchases made with the department’s purchasing cards, had for more than two years made fraudulent purchases with his own county-issued card and those of other employees, issuing payments to a fictitious company that he created and then transferring the funds to his own bank account.
Richards was arrested on state charges and later indicted in federal court. As part of his guilty plea to the federal charge, Richards acknowledged that he “used the proceeds of this fraudulent scheme to make numerous personal purchases, including the purchase of lottery tickets.”
“This type of fraud increases costs for all taxpayers in this country and erodes public trust in government,” said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “The FBI is committed to holding corrupt individuals like Richards accountable for their greed.”
The case was investigated by the Glynn County Police Department and the FBI and prosecuted for the United States by Southern District of Georgia Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew A. Josephson.