The former bookkeeper of a Californian contractor has been sentenced to 10 years and four months in prison after being found guilty of embezzling $877,000 from her employer.
Joy Wilde, 42, pleaded no-contest to 18 counts of embezzlement, two counts of forgery and one count of attempted embezzlement. The judge in the case, Jesse Marino, said the "unusually long" sentence Wilde received was explained by the "outrageously large amount of money" taken.
Over three years, Wilde passed 64 fraudulent checks and attempted to pass three others.
The victim was Greg Wiemann, owner of Greg Wiemann Construction in San Luis Obispo County. He was present at the sentencing and spoke about the impact the loss has on him and his business.
Dan Dow, the local district attorney, said: "Embezzlement crimes are significant at several levels. In addition to the financial devastation that large-scale thefts can wreak on a business, there is the very personal impact when a long-term employee in a position of confidence violates that trust.
"It frequently happens at the hands of someone you have come to know, trust and with whom you have developed a strong relationship. This office takes these cases seriously and will continue to prosecute them aggressively."
Image: ©GCR, illustration by Denis Carrier
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Should have been found some time ago.
It is awful to betray someones trust in this way and put the business and other peoples’ jobs at risk. The amount is staggering! Scamming seems to be widespread at the moment – I get a number of emails every day that are trying to get me to log into sites which are bogus. The sentence reflects the severity of the theft.