When Tom Steinman, former coordinator of the Fire Bureau's Emergency Medical Services, was sentenced to seven months in jail last week for stealing $120,000 from the city, he was all excuses. He told Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Frank Bearden that his misdeeds stemmed from a case of post-traumatic stress disorder that he developed from his days in Vietnam. Why this disorder showed up 25 years after he left the jungles--about six months before he started stealing from the city--is a mystery only Steinman can explain. He said the PTSD caused him to have "blackouts," another ridiculous claim. "It is a strange kind of blackout which covers the playing of video poker, the cashing of checks, the misappropriation funds...but not much else," wrote psychiatrist Eugene E. Klecan, who examined Steinman for the state. He said his crimes were the fault of the Fire Bureau, which failed to go easy on him when he was under stress after his efforts to win the contract to provide ambulance service for the county failed. Most insulting of all, though, was his claim in open court that his misdeeds didn't really amount to robbing the taxpayers because he spent the money on video gambling (a curious admission considering that he claims to have no memory of those long afternoons in front of the video-poker machines) and everyone knows that video poker money goes right back into government coffers. "I was startled when that came out of Mr. Steinman's mouth," says Deputy DA John Hoover, who prosecuted the case. "It's a ridiculous thing to say. He did not say, 'I did something wrong. I am sorry for that and I accept responsibility.'" |
