No prison time for ex-employee for stealing from DOT

PALMER — A former Department of Transportation employee will spend no time in prison for stealing fuel from his workplace.

In his guilty plea to a felony theft count Michael Barickman essentially admitted he stole between $500 and $24,999 worth of fuel, but said he almost felt as if he was committing perjury.

“I did not take the amount of fuel they’re saying I took,” Barickman told Superior Court Judge Vanessa White on Monday, adding that entering the plea, “is not the right thing to do but it’s the smart thing to do.”

Barickman, 55, of Palmer, was charged in January with nine theft counts. In addition to the fuel, which Alaska State Troopers alleged at the time totaled more than $17,500 over seven years, he was accused of stealing things like signage, sign poles and other DOT material.

His brother, William Barickman, also a DOT employee at the time, was charged with theft and evidence tampering in a similar case and has sued the department claiming he was the victim of a witch-hunt. William Barickman’s criminal and civil cases are still in the courts.

Michael Barickman’s attorney, Josh Fannon, said at Monday’s hearing that the material his client took was going to be thrown out anyway. Regulations prevent the department from re-using damaged sign posts and other material. Fannon said it was common practice at DOT for employees to take the stuff home. It saves DOT a trip to the dump.

Still, he said, he didn’t feel a jury would be likely to believe Barickman’s story. If the man readily admitted to stealing the fuel, it’s not a big leap to believe he stole other things.

“If my kid takes something from me and then something else is missing, I’m going to think they took it,” Fannon said. “My job isn’t based on guilt or innocence, it’s based on what I think the outcome is going to be.”

Paul Roetman, the prosecutor in the case, said the state had a problem with proof. While Barickman was caught red-handed filling up a fuel tank in the back of his truck from a DOT pump, other than those 30 gallons the best the state had to offer was a lack of receipts for fuel oil at the Barickman residence. Fannon and Barickman both said the defendant paid for fuel oil in cash and thus didn’t keep receipts.

“We don’t usually do these types of resolutions. The reason we’re doing it is because of the significant proof issues,” Roetman said.

The deal he struck was that Barickman would spend no time in prison and would write a check for $15,000, which he did as the lawyers were talking.

If Barickman can keep his nose clean for five years, the conviction will be erased. If he breaks the law again, though, White can choose to impose prison time. Both Roetman and Fannon agreed one positive thing to come out of the case is a shedding of light on the way DOT runs its operations.

“It may have been a loosely run shop,” was Roetman’s take. Fannon was more forceful.

“DOT and its inner workings are a mess,” he said.

In accepting the agreement, White set aside the claims about DOT’s practices.

“I’m not here to make findings about what’s going on at DOT,” she said.

She said that the resolution was a good one, noting that, as a judge, she wouldn’t have been able to impose a sentence that didn’t include prison time but was glad Roetman and Fannon decided to negotiate such a deal. Still, she said, there was a lesson for Barickman in all of this.

“As tempting as it may be to commit even relatively minor theft, no matter how tempting it is, it is still a theft punishable by time in jail.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.