City Employee Arrested for Stealing from the Deceased

A former employee of a Brooklyn governmental office has been arrested and charged with illegally pocketing $13,268, some of it from a deceased person's safe-deposit box.

Arthur Orikher, who was employed at the Kings County Public Administrator's Office, could face up to seven years in prison, according to a statement issued by the city's Department of Investigation. The Public Administrator's Office administers the estates of individuals who die without wills or without families who can administer their estates.

Just three months after being hired to perform accounting duties at the office, Mr. Orikher began depositing counterfeit checks worth $9,969 into his personal account, the commissioner of the DOI, Rose Gill Hearn, said.

Then, on April 30, Mr. Orikher stole $3,300 that had been collected from a deceased client's safe-deposit box.

"The charged conduct obviously violates the fundamental obligations and standards of personal integrity required of any public servant, to say nothing of one paid by the City to conserve the money and valuables of the deceased," Ms. Hearn said in the statement.