When cops confronted Palm Beach County employee Jeffrey Sek about filling up his truck's gas tank with a county credit card, police say he told them he'd only done it "four, five, or six times." Then he reportedly told the cops it was "six, seven, or eight times."
Try 45 times, according to the State Attorney's Office.
A Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy thought it was a bit suspicious a couple of months ago when he saw Sek, 55, filling up a luxury Lincoln pickup truck at one of the county's fuel pumps in Lake Worth, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
After the deputy discovered Sek was employed as a storekeeper for the Palm Beach County purchasing department, he forwarded that information to the county, which told Sek he was being fired on June 17 for stealing county property.
That's when police say he admitted to filling up his rig with county coin somewhere between four and eight times. He said his county vehicle almost ran out of gas a few times and he would use a couple of bucks out of his pocket to get the vehicle to a county gas station.
Sek then allegedly decided to reciprocate the favor by filling up his own truck to "call it even," the report says.
The cops then found that since March 2008, Sek had filled up his truck 45 times -- and maybe even more -- at the county pump.
There were also 171 instances in which Sek drove 20 minutes away from his office -- which has a county fuel pump right outside -- to purchase gas at a pump five minutes from his house, although none of those occasions were pinned on him.
The tab to the county: 1,115 gallons of gas with a price tag of $2,969.78
Sek faces one count of grand theft, and if he's convicted of being a gashole, he faces up to five years in prison.
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