Charged with stealing $9,500, why is this public worker smiling?

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Grace E. Mays, the president of the Registrars’ Association of New Jersey, swiped $9,500 from the organization by writing checks to herself, then back-dated a loan agreement to make it look like she borrowed the money, authorities said this afternoon. So why is she smiling for her mugshot?

Jerry DeMarco

11/10/2009 5:42 p.m.

Mays, 45, who lives in Hackensack and is the registrar for the Tenafly Board of Health, was arrested today and charged with writing checks and making cash withdrawals from the state Registrars’ Association bank account. She remains free without bail pending court action.

Grace E. Mays

Molinelli said Mays wrote checks to herself three times in September “for the purpose of paying personal obligations,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.

She struck again last month, making unauthorized cash withdrawals less than two weeks apart “which she converted for her personal use,” he said.

Mays then “fabricated and signed” a loan agreement, back-dated to Sept. 17, “in an attempt to make it appear that the Association had loaned her the money, Molinelli said.

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