METHUEN — Another Methuen school employee is facing criminal charges, this time for allegedly taking a co-worker's debit card and using it to buy beer.
Dolores Silva, 37, a program assistant at Timony Grammar School, will be arraigned on a misdemeanor charge of false use of a credit card under $250, a misdemeanor charge of larceny under $250, and forgery.
According to a police report by Officer Neil Quinlan, a Timony employee reported her debit card stolen April 10. The bank advised the victim the last three purchases were made at Oscar Liquors at 441 Prospect St. Quinlan watched store surveillance video which showed Silva buying $41.49 worth of beer, the report stated. When contacted by Quinlan, Silva said she didn't do anything wrong and that she found the card on the floor, the report stated.
Silva refused to comment for this story.
Silva is the latest in a string of school employees being brought up on criminal charges in the last year.
Police in Salem, N.H., charged Brenna Matseas, a Methuen School Department bookkeeper, with two counts of selling cocaine in July. Beth Reuter, the head custodian at Comprehensive Grammar School, recently admitted to sufficient facts on a charge of possession of a class B drug (cocaine), stemming from a drug deal witnessed by police on Aug. 23.
Former Comprehensive Grammar School janitor Eugene Casey pleaded guilty last year to a charge of using a telephone for gambling after police busted a gambling ring that was handling up to $500,000 in wagers a week. He is appealing to the state's Civil Service Commission to get his job back.
