Vermont Woman Pleads Guilty To Embezzling $325K From Eye Care Practice

Linda A. Belval, 52, of Morrisville, Vermont, pleaded guilty last month to embezzling about $325,000 from David H. Garbutt, O.D., a local optometrist where she had been employed as an office manager.  According to prosecutors, Belval wrote numerous unauthorized checks to herself over a 12 year period, from 1999 until February 2011.  Belval reportedly used several embezzlement schemes to misappropriate the monies, including fraudulently using a signature stamp to authorize checks, falsely reporting the money was paid to vendors, writing checks similar in size to her actual paychecks to cover her tracks, and reimbursing herself for fake office expenditures.  Belval plead guilty to one felony count of wire fraud.

Read the story here and here.

Update (4/24/12): Belval has been sentenced to nearly 2 years in prison.  She pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud last October.