University officials are investigating a male maintenance employee accused of entering a Munson Hall room Thursday while female residents slept and stealing approximately $70 in cash.
Two female students noticed money missing from their wallets at 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 18 after the maintenance person allegedly left their room. The students said they are concerned about the ease of accessing rooms.
“The money wasn’t the biggest thing,” Said Rachel Glickhouse, a resident. “There are a lot of maintenance people who have keys to every room on campus. We are really uncomfortable that these guys can come in at any time. Our concern is that these guys can easily take advantage of having keys.”
The residents said the man unlocked the room and entered after they did not answer their doorbell. His movement woke sophomore Nikoleta Tzaferos, who saw him fiddling with her roommate’s desk light. The man apologized for waking her and left. When the Tzaferos got out of bed an hour later, she noticed her wallet was out of her purse and money was missing, she said.
The students contacted University and Metropolitan Police after the incident. The man in question was found in the building, but he was not arrested because the money was not found on him, the roommates said. The man was a 5-foot-7-inch African-American of about 170 pounds, Tzaferos said.
“UPD told me they had problems with this guy in the past, which kind of annoyed me because they didn’t do anything about it,” Glickhouse said.
UPD Chief Dolores Stafford said the information about the situation given to The Hatchet was consistent with the information she had received. In an interview Friday, Executive Vice President and Treasurer Louis Katz declined to comment about the alleged theft.
“The University is looking into this matter,” read a statement from Katz’s office said. “We do not share issues involving personnel.”
Since September, four employees – all of them working for departments that report to Katz – have been suspected of theft. Last month, a GW Mail Services employee was suspended after being suspected of opening students’ mail. In separate incidents, two employees are accused of falsifying documents to steal thousands of dollars from GW.
