DOWNS - A Bloomington man pocketed a fraction of a penny for every gallon of fuel sold during his shifts at a Freedom Oil gas station, a detective said.

After three years, the 39-year-old had raked in about $20,000, said McLean County Detective Cliff Rushing.

Christopher T. Lafever, of the 1500 block of North Morris Avenue, is accused of embezzling the money while working at the station at the intersection of U.S. 150 and Towanda Barnes Road.

He was arrested and released on a personal recognizance bond earlier this week, and he was indicted Wednesday on a charge of theft by deception of more than $10,000.

A message left at Freedom Oil's headquarters wasn't returned Friday.

A court file says Lafever stole the money by altering the amount of income reported to the company between June 2004 and October 2007.

Police said Lafever told detectives he had been changing the pump price one day when "he found a flaw" in the system that he exploited.

"He said he did this because there were some financial problems at home," Rushing said. "There was a breakup that cut into his household income."

$35 to $50 in each shift?

Rushing said Lafever embezzled $35 to $50 in each of his shifts, during which he charged customers the appropriate amount but told the company he was charging a lesser amount.

If the price of a gallon of fuel was supposed to be $2.99 and nine-tenths of a cent, he could have charged that amount to customers but told the company the station charged $2.99 and five-tenths, the detective said.

David Sykuta, executive director of the Illinois Petroleum Council, said he hadn't heard of an embezzlement scheme of the type described. He said retailers in any high-volume business have to be careful, and seemingly small amounts of money can add up over years.

As long as the difference wasn't equal to or greater than 1 cent per gallon, Freedom Oil's software wouldn't catch it, Rushing said. The company recently installed new software and noticed a problem, he said.

Even after the installation, the company spent weeks trying to clear their "highly respected employee," who had been with the company 15 years, Rushing said. But the lengthy process to alter the price for all sales convinced investigators the price difference was no accident, he said.

"This had to be manually done on each and every pump" through a computer, Rushing said.