Oregon newspaper stops presses, fires staff after worker accused of $70K embezzlement scheme

A weekly newspaper in Oregon halted publication and laid off its entire 10 person staff three days before Christmas after an employee allegedly swiped tens of thousands of dollars from the financially struggling paper. The Eugene Weekly — owned by two women in their 90s — shared on its website that “shortly before Christmas, we discovered that EW had been the victim of embezzlement at the hands of someone we once trusted.” The newspaper’s editor, Camilla Mortensen, told The New York Times that the unidentified worker was behind the years long scheme, which left some $70,000 of bills unpaid and money not being paid into employee retirement accounts.

Mortensen and a handful of other workers are still volunteering to publish articles online for the free weekly, which was founded in 1982 and had a circulation of 30,00, according to The Times. However, “there will be no print paper edition of EW for the first time in more than 20 years,” the paper announced in its letter to readers.

“One of our biggest creditors, our printer, says it will print EW again only if we pay upfront,” it added, noting that its finances had been left in “shambles” and the paper would be hosting an online fundraiser “to keep EW alive.” As of Sunday, the fundraiser had collected upwards of $35,000, according to The Times.

The employee, who worked at the paper for at least five years, has been charged, Mortensen told the Times. Melinda McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Eugene Police Department, said cops were investigating but could not provide more details while the inquiry was underway, according to the outlet. The unidentified employee was out of the office last month, when EW was closing its financial records for the year, and suddenly a host of issues came to light, per The Times.

“Every time I find something out, I just get sick to my stomach,” said Mortensen, who joined the paper in 2007 and became editor in 2016. “And again, this is someone we worked with who came to the office every day.” The paper was already struggling financially following the pandemic, reducing pages and cutting the horoscope from its pages when things got tight.

Before the pandemic, EW had been doing well financially, according to Mortensen. The paper’s owners, 94 year old lifelong journalist Anita Johnson and Georgia Taylor, a former schoolmate of Johnson’s at the University of Oregon School of Journalism, have never taken a profit, EW shared in its letter to readers.

They “have poured money into the paper to cover costs when money ran short,” the message added. Mortensen told The Times that the duo also always put profits back into the business to cover expenses like worker bonuses and new equipment. Johnson and Taylor also covered the costs for the paper’s final print edition, on Dec.

21. Representatives for EW did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment..