ATM Expert Witnesses Evaluate Incorrect Transaction Records in Theft Case

This case involves an alleged theft of public funds by a public employee in a city in Arkansas. According to allegations made by the city’s police department, the Defendant illegally withdrew funds from an ATM machine that was owned and operated by the city government. The Defendant contended that the machine suffered a malfunction, and that he was not aware that the machine had logged the allegedly fraudulent transactions.

Question(s) For Expert Witness

1. What is your familiarity with this model of ATM?

2. To the best of your knowledge, can ATM's malfunction and incorrectly record and/or distribute funds to a customer?

Expert Witness Response E-007296

I am very familiar with this and other very similar machines. I own them, have installed them, programmed them, operated them, loaded software updates on them, fixed their hardware issues, addressed claims by cardholders of inaccurate transactions, and I have tools to read the ATM journals and review host (bank) records to see if they correlate properly. It is rare, but I have had errors occur at the ATM. In these cases, the exact cause of the error can be uncertain, however transactions that were recorded in error can be positively identified.