A safe containing several thousand dollars of coupons and several personal belongings from athletic director Tom Burman’s suite of offices was stolen some time between Sunday night and Monday morning.
Last week or earlier, checks were stolen from the Wajeda Oregon office, one floor down from Burman’s office in the university center building.
The checks were not missed until this Monday, when a check processing office called to report a suspicious transaction, Sally Mudiama, assistant director of Wajeda Oregon, said. Although the suspicious checks were not cashed, the thief had already cashed a check for $475, Mudiama said.
Wajeda Oregon works to send PSU students on cultural exchange programs to Japan, and to bring Japanese students to study at PSU.
The burglaries follow a string of attempted break-ins across campus that Campus Public Safety is treating as unrelated.
Locks have been damaged in Cramer Hall, and the Fourth Avenue Building, said chief of Campus Public Safety Michael Soto.
On Monday morning, faculty and staff arrived to find the main door handles of the Affirmative Action office, the Ombuds office and the Office of Graduate Studies bent downwards, though still locked. Nothing was found to be missing.
On Tuesday, workers at Norris, Beggs, and Simpson, a property management company that contracts with PSU and has offices in the Fourth Avenue Building, found their door handle similarly bent.
Soto said most likely the handles had been bent with a pipe. He noted the two burglaries did not show signs of forced entry.
Mudiama, however, noted her lock was replaced the previous week, when she thought the burglary had taken place.
“When we walked in (afterwards), the door handle wouldn’t turn,” she said.
The doors to the University Center Building are often unlocked and showed no signs of damage, said Carrie Calrascio, an assistant to Burman. The safe was behind Calrascio’s desk when it was taken.
Calrascio said that an athletics coach had spotted a strange man in the office Sunday evening. Campus Safety could not confirm this.
Burman estimated the safe to be two feet wide by two feet deep by three feet long, and roughly 60 pounds. It would have been more, but it was only filled with coupons, said Burman.
“It was light enough so that a strong person could grab it, and walk out the door with it no problem,” he said.
The coupons were mostly for rounds of golf, and were intended to be auctioned off to raise money for athletic scholarships, said Burman. Most of the coupons will be replaced.
“Its just disappointing and frustrating,” Burman said.