news-record.com

GREENSBORO - A former police sergeant and past administrator of Safety Town agreed Wednesday to pay back the money he took from the program.

David Andrew Moore, 46, was arrested in September 2007 and accused of taking more than $21,000 from May 2004 through July 2007, according to court records. Originally charged with embezzlement, Moore was found guilty of  willfully failing to discharge his duties as a police officer, a misdemeanor, after entering an Alford plea on Wednesday.

Moore, a 22-year veteran of the police department, was sentenced to 30 days in jail, which was suspended. He will be on unsupervised probation for a year. Moore also must pay back $15,600 to Safety Town. The lower amount than initally stated was determined after investigators found some of the purchases in question were legitimate.

Moore had coordinated the Safety Town program for more than six years before his arrest. A search warrant states he was in charge of the Safety Town program's finances for at least three years and alleges that Moore used some money to buy items for himself, such as iPods, a Global Positioning System device and a digital camera.

Safety Town is a nonprofit summer day camp for 5- and 6-year-olds that covers such topics as traffic safety, poison and strangers.