A fired Erie County deputy clerk who was trusted with handling hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer transactions was charged Friday morning with felony grand larceny after investigators accused him of embezzling $216,412 from the Clerk’s Office since 2021.
Alexander J. McDougall, of Buffalo, turned himself into the Sheriff’s Office, said District Attorney John Flynn. He was booked at the Holding Center and arraigned in Buffalo City Court.
In addition to facing second-degree grand larceny, which applies to theft of between $50,000 and $1 million, McDougall may face additional charges once his case goes before a grand jury. The Erie County Comptroller’s Office cited numerous examples of document tampering in its audit of the Clerk’s Office last year.
“Anytime we have someone taking taxpayers’ money, it’s sad,” said Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick, who has known McDougall for decades. “It’s also, I’m sure, sad for Alex and his family. I think about them also. I’m sure there’s a reason why this happened, and I look forward to hearing the details, but from the perspective of comptroller, this is why we do audits.”
Flynn, Hardwick, Sheriff John Garcia, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Clerk Michael “Mickey” Kearns, all of whom had a role in the investigation, are holding a news conference today about the case.
“The public trust is so important to have,” Garcia said. “So even though there was someone who went ahead and did this, with the comptroller finding it, and the DA’s Office and the Sheriff’s working together, and the state comptroller, we came to this point and we made an arrest.”
McDougall had worked in the Clerk’s Office for more than seven years and served as the deputy clerk overseeing finances since 2019.
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