Michelle A. Wing, 33 of Spokane, Washington, and her boyfriend Kenneth Marsh, 39, also of Spokane, were indicted yesterday on federal conspiracy and multiple bank fraud counts for embezzling $814,000 from two local advertising agencies. Wing was also charged with identity theft and credit card fraud. Both have been arrested and are in jail, pending hearings. According to the indictment, Wing was hired in December 2005 by Centaur Group of Spokane, jointly owned by Eric Hixson and Ryan Pirello who each own ad agencies E Media and Power Marketing Services, respectively. Wing was hired by Centaur through a temporary employment agency for bookkeeping services. Wing, using her access to books and records, proceeded to embezzle funds in a variety of ways, including forging checks, opening up credit card accounts in the owner's names, fraudulent expense reports and making unauthorized withdrawals and deposits in various corporate accounts in an attempt to conceal her activities. They had been assured that a criminal background check had been conducting on Wing by Centaur, according to reports. Unfortunately, Wing was at the time on supervised release following a 2001 conviction for bank fraud in Montana. Wing and Marsh proceeded to use the stolen funds to finance an extravagant lifestyle, including putting down payments on houses, purchasing luxury vehicles and travel, including airline tickets for a youth football team’s trip to California.
Read the story here and here.
Obviously the temp agency did not do a very good job on the "criminal check." Here is the problem: most online criminal background checks are wholly inadequate. The records they cover tend not to go back far enough in time or, more likely, simply do not cover the appropriate jurisdictions and courts. We find that any thorough background check requires physical searches of indices in the jurisdictions in which the subjects have lived and worked. While this is still not a 100% certainty, it is much more thorough than relying on on-line indexes.
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4 comments:
The employment agency should also be held accountable.
How very sad for the small business owners.
She has done it before at a BANK and a Dentist!
They both need to go down big for these crimes!
I think its bull#$%#!! I also feel that the temp anency should be held accountable for the criminal backround checks it not the ad agency responablity to find that crap out, that's work the temp agency to do, that just only show why temp angeny are bull$%^$ and don't trust anyone to handle your money!! Wing is at fault but the temp agency need to pay for this as well....
This has happened with her a few times and her family had to be in on it as well! You can't just sit back and see what she is buying and doing and not question "how" especialy when you know what she has done in the past!!!!! They should also be prosicuted as well as the ad agency!
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