SANTA ANA, CALIF. – A Huntington Beach woman was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison for embezzling nearly $3.5 million from her former employer, a warehouse and trucking-services company, officials said.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney sentenced Patricia A. Francisco, 62, after she plead guilty in August to four counts of wire fraud.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Carney ordered Francisco to pay $3,4 million as restitution to her former employer, California Multimodal, LLC, which is based in Long Beach.
As part of her scheme, Francisco used a signature stamp belonging to her boss to sign the checks.
Francisco used the money to finance personal expenses, such the following:
- A $300,000 down payment on her house
- A down payment on a condominium
- A $40,000 Cadillac Escalade, approximately $100,000 worth of jewelry
- Numerous trips to locations like Hawaii.
Francisco told investigators that she stole the money “because she wanted a better life,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. It cited a simple motive for the crimes: “greed – she wanted to live a more luxurious lifestyle.”
For more than 15 years, Francisco stole money from California Multimodal, where she worked as a bookkeeper.
According to court documents, Francisco used three basic means to misappropriate company funds:
- She stole company checks, which she made out to “cash”
- She caused checks to be written to legitimate vendors, which she then stole and deposited into her bank account
- She created bogus expense vouchers for other employees, which allowed to obtain checks that she deposited into her own accounts.
The case was investigated by the FBI.