The Carol Young Affair

 In the 1980s, if you wanted to park in one of Brookline’s busy shopping districts you’d better have some loose change. Drivers were feeding the meters around town with nickels and dimes (—theoretically to fund road repair or pay for teacher salaries, but as Brookliners found out in 1985, much of that revenue was not going to the town coffers, but to a 34-year-old bank teller from Brockton. 

Brookline’s Chief of Police George Simard was well known for the revenue he was able to generate from the more than 2,000 parking meters in operation. He once joked that he ran “the most successful small business in town” — and with 25-cent meters set to debut in 1986, his “small business” was expected to see more growth. But Brookline Police soon noticed something strange —  while the bags of coins kept getting heavier, the receipt totals seemed a little light. This was indeed a head-scratcher. Could Brookline’s finest be skimming off the top?

Simard was determined to find out. In early 1985, a pair of Brookline detectives slid into an unmarked vehicle and followed a squad car to Coolidge Corner’s Patriot Bank. Like a lot of Massachusetts towns, Brookline partnered with a local bank to tally up meter revenue. After all, no one wanted beat cops sitting around counting coins all day.  

Detectives found everything above board with the coin delivery, but the counting was suspicious. Brookline police captain Francis Harris discovered that no one was paying attention to teller Carol Young, who sat each afternoon in a windowless basement accounting room, totaling coins and filling out receipts. Following the money, police soon discovered that Young was underreporting the receipts each day and swapping out bank bills to cover the difference. 

A plan was devised to catch Young red-handed. Police diverted one day’s coins to the station rather than the bank, added up the totals, resealed the containers, and then brought everything to their target. Sure enough, Young’s daily total was nearly one grand short of the official police tally.

At that rate, Young had accumulated a small fortune of dirty money —  estimates started at half a million and went up from there. And she was spending it just as fast. Young paid cash for an $82,000 Brockton home and laid down another $10,000 for a brand-new Renault Encore — pretty flashy purchases for a $225 a week employee. Young stashed more money into five separate bank accounts and made plans to flee to the Midwest. A moving van was parked in her driveway when police closed in and made the arrest. 

As it turned out, Young had pressed her luck a bit too far. Police Chief Simard told the Brookline media, “If she hadn’t been so greedy, she probably would have gotten away with it. If she had taken $1000 a week instead of $1000 a day, I might not have caught her.”

Brookline largely recovered their losses. Patriot Bank won applause in June 1985 when they returned $200,000 unasked, and the town eventually received a one-million-dollar judgment. Carol Young pleaded guilty to embezzlement and wound up in Framingham prison for a year. The Renault, the Brockton home, and all of the bank accounts were turned over to Brookline. It seems it just doesn’t pay to put your hand in the town cookie jar.