Philadelphia Man Charged With Stealing $225K From Eagles Player
By Elizabeth Hur
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A veteran Philadelphia Eagles Offensive Lineman is talking to Eyewitness News about being the victim of a big theft.
Prosecutors say a parking lot attendant stole more than $225,000 from the big lineman's bank account over three years.
Todd Herremans says his financial advisor first noticed the unusual credit card charges and purchases on his account and contacted investigators from the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detective Division.
Sources tell Eyewitness News, this scheme could have gone undetected if Herremans had not gone to his financial advisor to purchase a new home in 2012.
The U.S. Attorney's office took over the investigation and on Wednesday, announced they charged a Philadelphia man with the crime.
"I'm just glad we caught it when we did," Herremans said, "It's unfortunate but at the same time, you have to be more careful with your information."
Lesson learned, after federal prosecutors say they have charged Robert Von Ryan with bank fraud. Authorities allege the 37-year-old, hired to guard the cars of Philadelphia Eagles football players, stole Herreman's bank information from his car.
"They ended up having our keys to be able to wash our car, clean our car, stuff like that, they had access to our car," Herremans recalled.
We're told, from 2009 to 2012, the suspect transferred $225,034.52 out of Herreman's bank account. Sources tell us, the suspect used the money to buy among other things: two cars, computers and phones.
Herremans noted, "If you get an account number, you can link a credit card to it to have it directly paid off, stuff like that, then you can go crazy I guess."
Von Ryan, officials say, was a subcontractor from "Staff One, Inc", a security firm. What baffles the latest alleged victim is learning the suspect has previously been convicted of theft charges.
"Maybe they need to do a better background check, I guess they didn't," Herremans said.
A spokesman for "Staff One" told Eyewitness News, Von Ryan was an employee with the company until the summer of 2011. We're told, their background check returned no priors on Von Ryan at the time.
Meanwhile, Eagles officials offered no comment -- other than to say that the initial theft did not occur at the Lincoln Financial Field but rather in the team's hotel lot and Herremans was fully insured thus received all of his stolen funds back.
