Break from the Grind July 20, 2017

A Little Friday File Fun

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Near Birmingham, England, doctors readying a 67-year-old woman for cataract surgery discovered that a “blueish mass” in one of her eyes was actually 17 contact lenses mashed together, according to a report published this month in the British Medical Journal. The woman reported discomfort in her eye, but figured it was because of dry eye and old age, according to Optometry Today. A specialist trainee ophthalmologist told the website that doctors eventually found an additional 10 individual contact lenses in the same eye. All of the lenses were monthly disposable contacts that the woman had forgotten about. The cataract surgery was postponed after the discovery to avoid increased risk of eye infection due to the bacteria around the patient’s conjunctiva, but there was no obvious infection in the eye.

In Corpus Christi, Texas, customers went to a Bank of America ATM, and instead of a receipt, out popped a message saying, “Please Help I’m stuck here and I don’t have my phone please call my boss.” The trapped man was stuck for about two hours. Some people who saw the note initially thought it was a joke. Luckily for the man, someone took it seriously and called for help. “Apparently he left his cellphone and the swipe card he needed to get out of the room outside in his truck,” Corpus Christi police Lt. Chris Hooper told The Associated Press.

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In Manitowoc, Wisconsin, police officers found a 32-year-old nak.ed man standing in the street yelling that he wanted to harm people living nearby. Officers suspected he was impaired by drugs and placed him in handcuffs, but the man struggled and refused to enter a squad car. According to the Associated Press, that’s when one officer deployed a stun gun, striking a lighter in the man’s hand. The lighter fluid and electricity combined to spark a fire in his beard and chest hair. As officers extinguished the blaze, the man punched one of them in the face.

In Taiwan, a woman has been granted a divorce, using the “Read” indicators on the Line messages she had sent to her husband as proof that he had been ignoring her. Line is the leading messaging app in several Asian countries. The app showed he had opened the text messages, but didn’t reply to any of them. The family affairs court judge cited the ignored Line messages as key evidence of the woman’s marriage being beyond repair, ruling that she was therefore entitled to a divorce.

In Deerfield Beach, Florida, a man said he and his family were awakened one morning by a loud thud on the roof of their home. “We got up, found two packages of sausage on our side yard, and then we were like, ‘OK, well, we got to go on the roof and check and see if we find more of this stuff,'” he said, according to the local ABC News station. A total of 15 pounds of Italian sausage was found in bags marked William Land Service, a land-clearing company in Alabama. The homeowners were baffled about how the sausage ended up on their roof, so their son called the company, which said it had no idea what he was talking about.

A good reason to slow down for speed bumps.

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This video just goes to show we all can get along.

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Whose idea was it to do a news story about helicopters coming in?

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Compliance July 20, 2017

Business Owner Pleads Guilty to Theft From 401(k) Plan

The business owner tried to blame other employees until she met with a DOL investigator.
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The owner of PCI, a commercial janitorial company that contracted with area school districts, and CDM, a company that performed construction and property management services in a metro area in Kansas, has pleaded guilty to theft from an employee benefit plan.

According to the plea agreement, in November 2010, the owner signed a trust agreement with Nationwide to establish the PCI Building Services 401(k) plan. CDM employees could also participate in the plan, which provided for a matching contribution on employee deferrals. She provided her bookkeeper with a list of employees who wanted to participate in the plan and their deferral amounts. Deferrals were withheld form employee paychecks as of February 1, 2011.

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On December 31, 2011, Nationwide sent quarterly statements to retirement plan participants, which showed no contributions deposited to their accounts. The bookkeeper provided the owner with a reconciliation showing that contributions were missing from the 401(k) plan. Several participants confronted the owner about missing 401(k) contributions. The owner assured employees their funds were being held in escrow with Nationwide, although she was using the contributions for her own benefit.

She went so far as to blame her accountant for embezzling as much as $1.2 million from the company and filed a police report. She also filed a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Administrator against a former employee, saying that employee was responsible for administration of the plan.

However, in May 2013, the owner met with a Department of Labor (DOL) civil investigator and admitted she was the responsible party and agreed to set up payments to reimburse funds she embezzled from the 401(k) plan.

The plea agreement orders the owner to restore at least $50,000 to the plan. The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas must still accept the plea agreement.

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