Suspect In $209K Embezzlement In Connecticut Has Prior Conviction For Fraud

From The Hour on 12/11/2014:

A Stratford woman, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Norwalk plastic surgeon, was previously convicted of embezzlement in California, according to statements made during her arraignment Thursday at Norwalk Superior Court.

Gloria Lavae Tamayo, 43, of Stratford, served 30 days in jail and was also placed on probation after being convicted in 1997 of embezzlement. She was arraigned Thursday on new allegations of first-degree larceny, third-degree forgery and identity theft. Judge William Wenzel kept Tamayo’s $239,000 cash only bond in place and transfered her case to the Part A docket at Stamford Superior Court, where high class felony cases are adjudicated. Wenzel set the bond without prejudice, so that it can be reargued when Tamayo appears in Stamford court Dec. 19.

The victim in the case, Dr. Laurence Kirwan, is a plastic surgeon who has offices in Norwalk, New York City and London. He has performed surgical work on British television celebrities. He has also performed extensive charity work for Americares and UNICEF.

The investigation that led to Tamayo’s arrest began in August when Kirwin noticed irregularities in his office’s bookkeeping, police said. The bookkeeping irregularities came to the attention of Kirwan when the doctor combed through his finances in order to produce an accurate financial affidavit in divorce court, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Tamayo was terminated with cause on Aug. 27, court documents show. She had taken numerous work days off due to mental health issues, and Kirwan believed her embezzlement led to the issues, court documents show.

“She was always complaining that the business, Dr. K. Services P.C., had no money,” Kirwan wrote in a statement to police. “I was delinquent with my business mortgage and discovered after she was terminated that all my credit card accounts were maxed out with no available credit and that our vendor accounts were all overdue and frozen. I think that a lot of her anxiety was based on the fact that she could no longer hide her theft of corporate funds, because we had run out of working capital.”

Detective William Maloney, a certified fraud investigator, assumed the investigation and pored through the financial bookkeeping at Kirwan’s East Avenue office in Norwalk.

Maloney learned that Tamayo, the office’s bookkeeper, had been writing unauthorized checks to herself since 2010 and disguising the unauthorized checks as payments to vendors, police said. Through this method, Tamayo embezzled at least $209,075, according to police.
Tamayo was arrested at her Stratford home on Wednesday.

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