Former St. Louis Treasurer Larry Williams
In three decades in office, former St. Louis city Treasurer Larry Williams survived bounced checks, scathing state audits and drug-dealing employees. What finally brought him down was a "ghost."
In 2011, Williams' friend and employee Fred Robinson was arrested by federal agents for fraud and theft, after stealing roughly $250,000 from a charter school. It turned out that Robinson also had enjoyed a phantom job on William's payroll for at least five years.
The U.S. Attorney's office said Robinson was a classic "ghost payroller," submitting false time sheets, taking pay for false hours worked and making about $35,000 a year starting in 2006. Over at least five years, the city paid Robinson as much as $175,000 for a no-show job.
Robinson ultimately was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Williams himself was never charged in the case, but it marked the beginning of the end of his scandal-marred career.
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Williams was first appointed in 1981 by Mayor Vincent Schoemehl to fill an unexpired term. In the 1980s, he ran a check-cashing operation that lost money on bad checks. He personally bounced 32 checks totaling $12,264.
In 2004, one of his workers was arrested for selling crack cocaine out of a ticket booth at the City Hall parking lot.
Analysis from the Post-Dispatch in 2005 found six relatives of city aldermen and five members of the city's central Democratic committee on Williams' payroll. A 2008 state audit found 43 of Williams' employees were related to somebody else in the office.
Through it all, Williams managed to win seven full terms at the ballot box, running with little opposition. Even after Robinson's indictment, Williams said he would run for re-election, though he later opted to end his political career following the FBI investigation into his office.
