Belleair town employee accused of pocketing cash from water bill payments

A government employee in the small Pinellas County town of Belleair is accused of pocketing nearly $5,000 in cash from residents’ water bill payments.

Town police arrested Jelani Gorham, 47, last week, according to court records. He faces a charge of scheming to defraud, a third-degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

Police began investigating Gorham last July after a colleague reported that she found Gorham, who had resigned from a job in the town’s finance department, trying to erase his work-issued computer’s hard drive, according to court records.

Town finance director Christina Porter and a finance consultant hired by the town told police that they’d found discrepancies in water bill deposits: The town’s internal accounting system showed higher totals than its bank deposit slips. The differences began in Oct. 2022, the same month that another finance employee went on maternity leave, leaving Gorham as the only employee in the department and the one in charge of taking money to the bank.

Bank records showed only deposits of checks, according to court records, and reflected no cash water bill payments. The missing cash totaled $4,890.54.

Gorham was arrested on April 11 and released from jail on bail of $5,000 the next day. He also faces a misdemeanor credit card fraud charge stemming from allegations that he used a town credit card at a Largo Publix in September, when he no longer worked for the town.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, Gorham said he was at work and asked a Times reporter to call him back at a specific time later in the day. Gorham did not answer or return that call. Court records do not list an attorney for him. According to his LinkedIn page, Gorham started work as an accounting clerk for Belleair in May 2022; the exact date of his resignation was unclear.

A person who answered the phone at Belleair’s town hall Wednesday morning said both Town Manager Gay Lancaster and the town’s public relations coordinator were out of the office. She referred questions to Police Chief Rick Doyle, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.