Upper Darby director of parking enforcement resigns after theft allegations, mayor says
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Upper Darby director of parking enforcement Sekela Coles resigned Wednesday night ahead of a council vote to terminate her, Mayor Barbarann Keffer told CBS News Philadelphia.
Coles' resignation comes after she was charged with multiple offenses for allegedly stealing money from parking kiosks earlier this week.
RELATED: Lawsuit filed against Upper Darby Township over handling of parking tickets
Coles, a former council member, is facing charges of theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and receiving stolen property.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said Coles allegedly directed an employee to take thousands in coins from new township parking kiosks and then to a Police and Fire Credit Union branch, where the coins were converted to cash.
"This is a political corruption case," Stollsteimer said Monday.
CBS News Philadelphia's Joe Holden first started looking into complaints about the Upper Darby Parking Enforcement Office last year. Our investigation stretched all the way back to November as we uncovered more than 18,000 parking tickets that were never sent to district courts for processing and hearings.
Prosecutors say the township lost more than $1 million in revenue from the missing tickets, but allege parking staff members tried to file those old tickets with the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts after our report aired in January.
Andrew Edelberg, Coles' attorney, disagreed that his client committed any crime as it relates to the theft charges.
RELATED: Upper Darby Township council members press lawyer for parking tickets audit results
"This case is there may have been some sloppy accounting or sloppy recordkeeping and sloppy policy that when it was discovered, it was ceased," Edelberg said.
Coles will fight the charges.
