Gerald D. Pawling

A former Coatesville detective previously accused of embezzlement waived his preliminary hearing on Tuesday, April 1, on new charges that include insurance fraud.

Gerald D. Pawling, 43, of Caln Township, has faced the same scenario twice before, having been arrested three times since August. Magisterial District Judge Jeffrey J. Valocchi set a formal arraignment date of April 17.

“Today we waived our right to a preliminary hearing which is consistent with Mr. Pawling’s overall desire to resolve this matter is an expeditious fashion, and to bring closure for all involved,” said his attorney, Daniel R. Bush.

Pawling worked for the Coatesville Police department for 17 years, retiring in 2012. In the first criminal complaint, he was charged with stealing $47,000 from the Coatesville Police Benevolent Association (CPBA) when he was its treasurer and the Coatesville Police Athletic League (CPAL), where he served as executive director.

In the second arrest, Pawling was accused of stealing an additional $7,000 from the CPBA through payments on a Staples store account, the criminal complaint said. The items purchased by Pawling, the father of five children, included electronics and school supplies; he also is alleged to have taken an additional $2,745 from CPAL to repave the driveway of his house and over  $7,000 from the Coatesville Police Department’s evidence room, the complaint said.

The alleged fraudulent use of the Staples account, which funded a Nikon D40 camera, led directly to the latest set of charges, according to the third criminal complaint. The Chester County Detectives discovered that Pawling collected $1,875.16 from Travellers Insurance Company in 2009 after reporting that a Nikon D40 camera, a Nikon 12-24mm lens, a GPS unit, and cash had been stolen from a vehicle on April 21, 2009, the complaint said.

During the execution of search warrants as part of the investigation, county detectives seized computers belonging to Pawling that had multiple photographic images on them, the complaint said. A Chester County detective who is a computer forensics expert recovered embedded metadata that showed that the computer images were photographs taken by the Nikon D40 camera after it had been reported as stolen, the complaint said.

Based on this information, the Chester County Detectives obtained a search warrant on Feb. 25 for Pawling’s residence, where they located the allegedly stolen Nikon D40 camera and Nikon 12-24mm lens, the complaint said. In addition, the detectives recovered another seven empty Coatesville Police Department evidence envelopes with their “integrity seals” broken that should have contained a total of $3,674.51 in cash, bringing Pawling’s total alleged theft to over $60,000, the complaint said.