An employee of an engineering firm working on development of a Wendy’s restaurant in Spring Township allegedly forged the signatures of township officials and approval dates on the project’s building plans.
Austin C. Thomas, 26, of Wapwallopen, Pa., is charged with 16 felony counts of forgery. Spring Township police said no one else at the engineering firm or others working on the project were aware that Thomas had forged the signatures and dates.
The restaurant is to be constructed at 123 Buckaroo Lane, near the Weis Market plaza. Police said in a Facebook post that they believe the plans will proceed but may be delayed.
According to a criminal complaint, Spring Township manager Bill McMath and code officer Vaughn Zimmerman contacted police on Dec. 27 when they found that the plans had been submitted with signatures already in place. Plans are typically submitted and reviewed before they are signed by township supervisors and other officials.
The signatures of the three township supervisors, three officials no longer in the positions listed on the documents and the surveyor who worked on the plans were all confirmed to have been forged, police said. A line indicating plans were approved on Sept. 27 also was not correct.
The surveyor said he had been contacted by Thomas, who worked for HRG Engineering, about signing the documents and that Thomas said it was urgent, but never heard from him again. The next time he saw the plans they had his forged signature and had been recorded with the county.
A manager at HRG’s Harrisburg office said Thomas was the main person working on the project locally. He told police that he had spoken to Thomas several times about getting the necessary signature. Normally, he said, they would be delivered to the township and a township designee would be responsible for obtaining the signatures. Once they were in place they would be recorded with the county.
In this case, however, Thomas told him that he went and got the signatures himself in early December, according to the complaint.
Thomas’s supervisor at HRG’s State College office, who is not involved in the project, told a detective in early January that he would drive Thomas to the police station when he returned to work the next day. Thomas did not show up for work the next day or the following Monday and was fired, police said.
Thomas allegedly did not respond to a detective’s phone calls for the next several days. He was taken into custody on Friday and arraigned by District Judge Kelley Gillette-Walker, who set unsecured bail at $75,000.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Plans for the Wendy’s location have been in the works for more than a year and were conditionally approved by the township. No timeline has been announced for construction.
