A Staten Island human resources manager forged a jury summons to avoid eight days of work — and now faces up to 14 years in prison, The Post has learned.
Rebecca Thybulle, 32, was nabbed after her boss found evidence on Thybulle’s desk — while she was out of the office supposedly on jury duty — that she had doctored the Staten Island court summons, said a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
Thybulle later tried to justify her cut-and-paste job of forging the official jury-duty summons by allegedly saying, “I needed to take some personal time off. My boss would not allow me to without a good excuse, and even then would badger you about it.”
Thybulle was busted yesterday afternoon at the Amboy Road offices of Children’s Home Intervention Programs, a state-funded social work that helps autistic kids, where she had been employed for the past year.
Her arrest came a day before she was due to be sentenced in Manhattan court on the charge of attempted grand larceny, which stemmed from her theft of about $6,400 from Coffee Shop, a restaurant where she had worked as payroll manager.
Thybulle also has a prior felony conviction for stealing Medicaid funds, a 2002 case for which she received a sentence of six months in jail and five years of probation.
According to sources, Thybulle on Oct. 13 handed her current boss, CHIP director Lois Bond, a photocopy of a Staten Island court jury summons that was addressed to Thybulle at her home address, stating she was required to call a phone number on that same day hear a “recorded message [that] will tell you when and where to report.”
On Oct. 14, the next day, Thybulle did not show up at work, and called her boss to say, “I was picked for jury duty,” according to sources. On subsequent dates, she left voicemails at CHIP saying she was still on jury duty, sources said.
In all, Thybulle was out of work, claiming to be on jury duty, eight days, from Oct. 14 until this past Monday.
Her scam was discovered when her boss Bond found evidence that Thybulle had shown her a forged summons, which had been created by using an actual summons issued last month to a relative of hers, Robert Thybulle, sources said.
Robert Thybulle, who lives at the same address as Rebecca Thybulle, was told in that summons to start calling for instructions about jury duty on Sept. 24.
“Bond examined [Thybulle’s] desk area at [CHIP] while she was away and did locate a sheet of paper with all of the necessary changes to make the official juror summons that was issued to Robert Thybulle for Sept. 24, 2010 appears as said juror summons presented by [Rebecca Thybulle] in her own name,” sources said.
Not only had Rebecca left evidence of her forgery, she also made some elementary mistakes in her scame, sources said.
First, her summons purported to be from “Richmond County,” the county that contains Staten Island. However, juror summons notices are created and issued by New York State — not by counties.
Also, Thybulle’s “summons” ordered her to start calling for instructions on a Wednesday — a day on which such summons are not ever issued.
Yesterday, Thybulle returned to work and told her bosses, “I was on a vehicular homicide case,” sources said.
She also showed them what purported to be an official jury service notice saying she had sat on that trial for eight days.
Thybulle was arrested within hours at the office, and charged with two counts of forgery — each of which carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for a conviction.
Thybulle was awaiting arraignment in Staten Island court today.
An official at CHIP, asked for comment on the case, said “there’s no one here right now who can talk to you.”