COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A Logan County employee pleaded guilty to grand theft and was ordered to repay over $28,000 in funds taken from cemetery operations in 2021.

According to the Ohio Auditor of the State’s office, Ron Furrow, a Miami Township trustee in Logan County since 1982, has already repaid a total of $28,168 for grand theft, a fourth-degree felony. He was sentenced to one year of community control and barred from public service for the next seven years.

Furrow, of Quincy, Ohio, took over the duties of Cemetery Sexton in 2007, a position he held until February of 2023. He was responsible for helping people select available cemetery plots, opening and closing graves, pouring foundations for headstones and general maintenance of the cemetery, and providing revenues related to cemetery operations to the Fiscal Officer for receipt and deposit into the Miami Township bank account.

In November of 2021 the Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit received a complaint that Furrow instructed that a check for payment of concrete footers installed under a headstone at Fairview Cemetery be made out to him instead of Miami Township.

The SIU also identified additional reimbursement checks to Furrow that lacked adequate supporting documentation to substantiate they were for a proper public purpose.

Logan County court documents show that as part of Furrow’s negotiated plea, the total fine of $28,168 breaks down as follows: $12,091 for burial related costs, $650 for improper reimbursements, $14,577 in audit costs and $1,500 in restitution directly to the family of a deceased person buried at the township of the cemetery.