Audit: Honored Veteran Hannibal NY Firefighter Stole Nearly $1M from Department

In 2018, the Hannibal Fire Company named a truck bay after its two longest-serving members: Jim Travis and George Parry Jr.

Parry, then 77, had been putting out fires in the rural community since he was a teen.

He’d been a volunteer for 60 years. For 50 of those of them, he was also the department’s treasurer, handling an annual budget that grew to more than $400,000 that included taxpayer money.

But at the same time the plaque honoring Parry’s service was hung on the wall, he was quietly bilking the department out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, a state audit found.

A state comptroller’s report released this week detailed how Parry’s unilateral control of the department’s books, accounts and multimillion-dollar investments enabled him to steal at least $850,000 between 2016 and 2022. But because Parry controlled the department’s money for decades, it’s possible his theft went on for much longer.

It was a scheme that ended with a department devastated and one man dead.

Parry wrote himself 823 checks totaling $451,537 over an eight-and-a-half-year period, the audit found. In just one year, 2019, Parry signed 123 checks to himself totaling more than $90,000.

Parry also made hundreds of cash advances to himself using a secret fire department credit card. Between 2017 and May 2022, Parry used the credit card for 794 cash advances, averaging about $400 each time, according to the report.

In one year, he made nearly 200 cash advances to himself totaling about $82,660.

In all, Parry put a total of $400,000 in charges on the fire department credit card, which he then paid off using the department’s general fund and investment accounts.

Almost all of the money Parry took was in checks or cash payments to himself, so it’s hard to know what he spent it on.

Parry’s thefts went on for years, according to the report. They even continued after the department elected a new treasurer in March 2022.

Then fire department officials discovered the credit card.

The department president and the chief confronted Parry. He admitted he was using the card for his own benefit, according to the audit. He was suspended and the chief asked the state comptroller’s office to investigate.

The department was in the process of getting years of financial records from Parry’s home when he died May 26, 2022.

Earlier that day, Parry went to the Sterling Nature Center. He sat down on a bench, and he shot himself in the head with a handgun, according to a report from the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office.

People at the park that day heard the gunshot and went searching.

Parry was single and is survived by two grown sons. He began his career as a teacher. He then found his way into car sales, working at several dealerships until he retired from Fred Raynor Ford in Fulton, his obituary said.

His obituary lists his loves as simple: “He loved the outdoors, hunting, NASCAR, and giving his time and energy to the Hannibal Volunteer Fire Department.”

The obituary credits him with always making sure the Hannibal firefighters had the best of everything — gear, trucks and equipment. The fire department was “his work and his home.”

Records show Parry had some financial troubles in 2006, when he filed for bankruptcy.

Parry was not the only one to blame for his theft. The audit also faulted the fire department for its complete lack of oversight over finances.

It’s a failure that has been repeated countless times across New York fire departments for decades: a trusted figure takes department money in the absence of any review.

The Hannibal fire department allowed Parry to have total control over the finances, according to the audit. The leadership did not ask for any written financial reports. Parry gave reports verbally.

While the comptroller’s audit looked back through eight years of records, it’s possible Parry had been taking money for decades.

He kept all of the department’s financial records at his home, and was the only one who had access to them. An accountant — who, like Parry, was not named in the report — had been paid by the department to review the financials and prepare documents.

But the accountant told the comptroller’s office that he had known Parry for 30 years and he trusted him.

“Therefore (he) did not apply the same level of professional scrutiny as he did with his other clients,” the audit reads. The accountant only reviewed bank statements and the manual checkbook register, where Parry wrote down that he paid vendors when he was actually paying himself.

The fire department was also required to have an independent financial audit every year because its budget is over $400,000, but it never did so, according to the audit.

Members of the Hannibal Fire Company declined to comment, referring Syracuse.com to a statement prepared by their attorney, Brad Pinsky.

“The fire company recognizes the serious nature of the comptroller’s findings and was as shocked as you are in this discovery,” the statement reads. The department said that while it takes responsibility, it also was a victim.

“Unfortunately, that trust also was misplaced and that process failed,” the statement reads.

The department said it now has several layers of checks and balances for its finances. It has hired a new accounting firm to maintain computerized financial records and file its annual IRS forms.

It’s likely no one will ever know much Parry took from the department because he handled its money for more than 50 years with such little oversight.

The fire department is now working to rebuild the community’s trust. It depends on the public for all of its money. There are fire protection contracts from the towns it serves and then there are all the fundraisers it does, from chicken barbecues to the department’s annual field days next month.

“We also invite the public to become involved in our financial monitoring processes if you so desire,” the department said in its statement. “We assure you that this will never happen again.”

In his obituary, Parry’s family asked that his friends honor his memory this way: with a donation to the Hannibal Fire Department.

Marnie Eisenstadt writes about people and public affairs in Central New York. Contact her anytime email | Twitter| Facebook | 315-470-2246.