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Schuylkill County Clerk of Courts to Step Down

POTTSVILLE- The investigation continues at the Schuylkill County courthouse where officials are looking into whether thousands of dollars were misused by the Cl...

POTTSVILLE- The investigation continues at the Schuylkill County courthouse where officials are looking into whether thousands of dollars were misused by the Clerk of Courts.

Officials accuse Steve Lukach of using his power as an elected official to purchase things for himself.

"I was a little surprised that is happened in Schuylkill County because all of the elected officials I've ever worked with, I could not imagine them doing anything like this," chief county detective, Dolly Malec said.

Officials say an audit found Lukach was using the county's money to pay off his car.

Lukach talked to Newswatch 16 about that last month saying it was an honest mistake.

"I've already cleared that transaction away and moved it back from my personal account back into the account. Because of the 10 numbers, nine of them are exactly the same," Steve Lukach said in March.

Despite what Lukach said then, the investigation continued.

Now officials say they have found more purchases they believe Lukach made for himself.

"We've subpoenaed bank records back to 2008. We have still not completed our investigation with this, we still have subpoenas pending," county controller, Christy Joy said.

District Attorney Christine Holman showed Newswatch 16 pictures of items she believes Lukach purchased with the money.

They include things such as printer cartridges, a portable hard drive, Turbo Tax software among other things.

"Laptop- not in office. Where is this cartridge? Not in office. Where is this? Not in office," Holman said.

The District Attorney's office also believes that Lukach somehow found a way to duplicate checks.

Documents that were shown to Newswatch 16 show that some checks filed to his office are written to different places than checks that were received by the bank.

"This is taxpayer money. This is an elected official taking advantage of the public. The public who trusted him," Holman said.

Newswatch 16 tried to reach Lukach multiple times - but our calls were unanswered.

Charges have not been filed against Lukach.

The Schuylkill County District Attorney, the FBI and the US Attorney's office will continue their investigation.

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