Vincent Farler, 22, accused of forging dying man’s checks, and stealing a welder after the man passed, to support a heroin habit.
DILLINGHAM: Those who know Vincent Farler, 22, of Dillingham, say he uses heroin. The expensive habit costs an average Bush Alaska user $1-200 a day, or more, depending on the severity of the addiction. A 1/10 gram dose of heroin, or its equivalent in illicit prescription opiod pill form, has a street value of $100 in Dillingham and other Bristol Bay communities.
Farler, in custody last Thursday night at the Dillingham jail, would not go so far as to publicly confirm a drug habit. Sobering and a little shaky, however, the reality of the allegations against him were setting in.
“Not in a million years …” he said, trailing off. “This goes against all the morals I’ve ever had. I’ll never get another job in this town. I’ve embarrassed myself and everyone who ever knew me.”
The allegations are far from flattering. Dillingham police say Farler altered nine checks written to him by Monte Syvrud from late November through early January, and stole three blank checks he forged completely. In total, police say Farler stole $1910.00 from Syvrud, who had hired the young man to install flooring at his home at the far end of Kanakanak Road.
“It gets worse,” said Dan Pasquariello, chief of the Dillingham Police Department, which began investigating the forged checks in early January after the Syvrud’s discovered the theft.
Syvrud, a longtime night nurse at the Kanakanak Hospital and highly respected member of the community, was dying of cancer. He passed away on January 13, the morning after family and friends had gathered to celebrate his 67th birthday.
“Monte would help any one, any way he could,” said his widow Mae, adding that Monte believed in second (and third) chances in life. “He would open our home, and try to lift people up in life if he could.”
Monte and Mae faithfully attended the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Dillingham, and there was standing room only at Monte's funeral service the Saturday following his passing.
Days later, on Tuesday evening, Mae Syvrud called police to report that her late husband’s shop had been broken into, and a new welder, worth roughly $300, had been stolen. Only a few people would have known about that welder, she told police, and among that short list was Farler.
The next day Chief Pasquariello and Officer Bill Bauer drove to Farler’s home to question him about Syvrud’s missing welder. It happened that the welder in question was sitting in plain view in the back of Farler’s truck as the officers arrived.
“He didn’t even bother to off-load the thing,” said Pasquariello. “I have to admit, we were pretty disappointed. Here’s a guy we knew had stolen money off a dying man, and not three days pass after the man is buried and he breaks into his shop to rob him. I mean, a guy who went out of his way to hire him, to give him real work.”
He and Bauer questioned Farler, asking how or why he happened to be in possession of the missing welder. According to the officers, he first claimed it was a gift from Monte.
“We knew that was a lie,” said Pasquariello, pointing out that the shop had been broken into.
Then Farler cooked up a story about a “kid from a village” he didn’t know who sold the welder to him downtown for the price of one bottle of vodka.
Pressed, Farler admitted that too was a lie.
“Then he started giving us a lot of names of his associates he said might be responsible for stealing it,” said Pasquariello.
Though Farler had earlier admitted to forging the checks, he would not accept responsibility for the stolen welder, and wriggled from one implausible story to the next. Police were granted an arrest warrant on a host of charges and picked up Farler a week later.
Law enforcement, including the Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team, has been warning the public of a rise in petty crime tied directly to the rise in heroin use in the region. Chief Pasquariello, who worked for several years as the DPD liaison to WAANT, believes this case fits that trend. He also cited the December burglaries at the airport, where the suspect Antone Suskuk, 31, admitted to heroin use the day he broke into three airline terminals looking for cash.
At the Syvrud home, Mae is left with an unfinished floor installation that she says wasn’t done well to begin with, and no hope of recovering the money stolen from the checking account.
“It should have taken a week to finish that job, and instead we paid him for six weeks. I can’t believe this happened to us. It’s disappointing that we trusted this person, offered him a job, and this is how he treated us."
Mae Syvrud has been a substance abuse counselor in Dillingham for 19 years. She did not suspect Farler was using heroin, but was not surprised to be victimized by an addict. Like her late husband Monte, she believes in forgiveness and second chances.
“People can turn their lives around, I have seen it done many times. But they have to make that choice.”
Farler was arraigned on 24 counts of forgery and two theft charges. His bail was set at $5,000.