Hoa Nguyen

htnguyen@lohud.com

MOUNT KISCO – A parking enforcement officer was accused Tuesday of stealing more than $89,000 from village meters, a decade after another officer siphoned off funds, though that take was only a third as much.

Jeffrey Daday, 35, of Brewster was arrested as he left a branch of People's United Savings Bank on Moger Avenue, where officials said he deposited into his personal bank account some of the revenue he emptied from parking meters.

"It shocks the conscience," Mayor J. Michael Cindrich said of the allegations. "It's a betrayal of the public trust."

Daday is accused of siphoning off parking meter revenue for the past five years, starting on Jan. 5, 2009, the Westchester County District Attorney's Office said.

His routine would be to empty the meters and then deposit some of it into his bank account, officials said. Investigators from the District Attorney's Office began watching him after being alerted to the alleged thefts, officials said.

Daday was charged with second-degree grand larceny, a felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. He was released on his own recognizance.

Cindrich said Daday's job was to enforce codes and he generally didn't collect parking revenue, although he may have had access to the meters.

The alleged thefts appear similar to the scheme carried out by Jason Berke, a former village employee and parking meter supervisor who pleaded guilty in 2005 to stealing $30,000 in coins from parking meters.

He would pocket about $1,000 a week in coins, stashing them in a camera bag he kept in his car and then cashing them in at Coinstar machines at supermarkets around Westchester.

Following those thefts, village officials changed collection procedures.

"I thought it would cover this type of incident," Cindrich said. "We're going to be looking at the accountability as we move forward."

Recently, three former Westchester County Center employees were sentenced — Jahmai Samuel, 28, of the Bronx, to prison, and Alessia Velez, 29, of Queens and Marcus Harris, 30, of Mount Vernon, to probation — after pleading guilty to selling unauthorized parking permits and then pocketing the money.