At the bar, on the clock. A state employee accused of skipping work, regularly, while still getting paid. Our Erin Vannella has the details.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- "He works at the Empire State Plaza in the Corning Towers for the Office of General Services and this anonymous complainant alleged that he was leaving work after lunch and not returning," said Darren Miller, Deputy Inspector General.

Greg Ruth, 53, has been arrested for what the Office of the Inspector General calls five years worth of alleged delinquent behavior.

"Our investigators followed him from his office here on the Empire State Plaza and followed him to various bars and taverns in Albany and after he was in the bars for some time he would leave and go home and never return to work," Miller said.

TJ's and Ralph's were two places we're told he frequented. Deputy Inspector General Darren Miller says Ruth admitted that he left work early without permission and submitted false time records to conceal his conduct.

"We did a one year estimate or calculation based on his salary and amount of time that he admitted to taking off and calculated that it was at least $7,000," said Miller.

Now, Miller says Ruth, who had 36 years in with OGS, could get up to seven years in jail for grand larceny, offering a false instrument for filing and scheming to defraud the government.

"The majority of state employees are hard working people who earn their salary on a day to day basis and work their allotted time schedule and it does a disservice to them to have a state employee who takes off work half a day and goes out to a bar and goes home and it also undermines the public's confidence in state work force," Miller said.

For the time being, Ruth has been suspended without pay.

Miller says Ruth's current supervisor had been counseling him on his absences, but with no apparent success. Office of General Services Acting Commissioner Joseph Rabito issued a statement saying, in part, "OGS is committed to being part of a state government New York can be proud of, so the behavior as described, if accurate, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

Ruth is scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday.