MILFORD – Information that came out of Souhegan High School Resource Officer John Smith’s February investigation into an unrelated e-mail incident tipped police to math teacher Randy Floyd’s alleged side business – selling stolen school calculators on eBay – and resulted in Floyd’s arrest last week, according to documents filed in Milford District Court.

Floyd, 50, a Merrimack resident who has taught math at Souhegan for 10 years, was arrested last Tuesday at his 169B Amherst Road home and charged with three counts of theft, all misdemeanors. SAU 39 Superintendent Mary Jennings said last week that Floyd was placed on indefinite paid administrative leave after his arrest.

Floyd is free on bail while awaiting an arraignment scheduled for June 10 in Milford District Court.

Although charged with stealing three calculators, police believe Floyd may have sold up to 44 of the stolen units on eBay over three years, Smith wrote in his report.

In that report, Smith states that the case against Floyd began to unfold in February while he was investigating an anonymous e-mail to Jennings’ office “alleging that a Souhegan High … teacher who lives in Merrimack had bought land in Amherst and established a false address so she could send her child to Souhegan High instead of Merrimack High.”

It’s not clear whether the sender was Floyd or someone using his account, nor to whom the sender was referring.

While checking the sender’s e-mail address, Smith discovered that the same address, minus the provider suffix, was the screen name for an eBay account that specialized in selling graphing calculators “of the type commonly used in high school-level math courses,” he wrote.

Smith looked further into the eBay account, finding a series of bad customer reviews from buyers who purchased calculators. Smith contacted some of the dissatisfied buyers, including women in the Virgin Islands and North Carolina and men in Michigan and Texas, he stated.

The buyers, who bought a combination of Texas Instruments Ti-83 and Ti-84 calculators, complained of receiving used and worn calculators rather than the advertised “refurbished” calculators, Smith wrote. They told Smith that the units’ serial numbers had been scratched, rubbed or burned off, prompting at least one woman to contact her local police.

With help from the buyers, Smith traced PayPal transaction records that identified Floyd as the seller, he stated, adding that further investigation into the seller name listed to Floyd showed three years of activity, some relating to calculator sales, from January 2007 through February. During that time, Smith added, he took “numerous reports of stolen and lost graphing calculators from within Souhegan High School.”

Convinced that Floyd was the eBay seller, Smith faxed a search warrant to the company’s fraud investigation team, he wrote.

The response showed Floyd sold 44 Texas Instruments graphing calculators since January 2007.

Smith stated that police placed Floyd under surveillance, installing a hidden camera in Room 206, where Floyd did most of his teaching. Then, at around 9:15 a.m. Feb. 18, Smith placed a calculator, with the serial number intact, in Room 206, but when he returned around 7 p.m., he wrote, the calculator was gone.

Smith repeated the process on March 25 and again on April 14, returning both times to again find the calculators gone.

When police reviewed the tape from the hidden camera, they watched Floyd look the calculator over, then use it for “what appears to be class purposes.” About an hour and a half later, Smith wrote, Floyd is seen putting the calculator in his briefcase, pack up his belongings and leave the room.

Smith stated that police monitored Floyd’s eBay account for the three calculators, but as of May 19, he wrote, none had shown up, nor were they turned in to the school’s lost and found.

Police got warrants to search Floyd’s classroom, desk and storage space at Souhegan; his home; his Ford pickup truck and his Kawasaki motorcycle for the three calculators.

Court records indicate that none of the calculators were found in the truck or motorcycle, but aren’t clear whether any were found at Souhegan or in Floyd’s home.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashua telegraph.com.