CLINTON TWP — A former employee with the Cygnus Manufacturing Co. is facing numerous felony charges after he allegedly used a company credit card and accounts to make nearly $360,000 in unauthorized purchases.

Donald T. Coulson Jr., 36, of Charleroi is facing 10 felony counts of both theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception, as well as felony counts of receiving stolen property, forgery and access device fraud.

The state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation said a forensic audit revealed Coulson allegedly racked up $359,426 worth of purchases from multiple companies that were not for legitimate business purchases at Cygnus, 491 Chantler Drive.

The audit also discovered Coulson allegedly submitted fraudulent invoices in an apparent attempt to hide his activities from Cygnus management, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Coulson was hired by the company in April 2010 as an information systems engineer. One of his functions was to buy technology items from outside companies. He was authorized to make those purchases with the company’s existing accounts and credit card.

However, Carolyn Crouse, vice president of Cygnus, in December 2014 noticed the company’s technology costs were high, documents said. She pulled a random invoice from a Verizon Wireless bill and found six cellular devices had been bought by Coulson then deactivated.

Crouse set up a meeting with Coulson for the next day but he did not show up to work. The following day Coulson apologized for “misplacing” the phones and gave the company a check for $5,800, documents said.

He later tried to resign but his resignation was denied by John Maholtz, president. Coulson was then fired.

Soon after his dismissal, Coulson wrote a check for $85,000 to the company and attached a letter saying the check was for “negligent handling” of an Amazon account, which no one at the company knew existed, documents said.

Crouse and Maholtz believed there were more issues with Coulson’s purchases and continued to investigate the spending, finding many of the items he bought were not Cygnus property and were not needed by the company.

They also discovered altered and fabricated invoices.

A forensic audit began in February. In October, the auditor completed the investigation and forwarded the information to police.

Coulson made unauthorized purchases from 18 companies, most of which were for computer hardware and software and other electronic devices. About $2,700 was spent on scuba diving equipment, documents said.

Cygnus received more than $90,000 in restitution from Coulson and its total loss remained at about $270,000.

In addition to the 23 felony counts, Coulson is facing 14 misdemeanor theft charges.

His bail was set at $300,000.

Cygnus Manufacturing is a precision manufacturer of products and components for non-invasive medical devices, transportation, scientific instrumentation, energy, aerospace and defense applications.