9 million reasons to fight internal fraud
UPDATE: Patricia K. Smith sentenced to six and a half years. Read more here.
Patricia Smith will be sentenced today, May 8 for embezzling $10.2 million from Baierl Acura. The US Attorney recommends that she serves five to six years. I wouldn’t be surprised if she receives less time than that.
“The $10 million stolen is not an insignificant amount to Baierl, as it might be for a Fortune 500 corporation,”
– U.S. Attorney Steve Kaufman
The majority of Fortune 500 corporations can absorb seven-figure losses and continue operations. Employees may be fired for failing to detect the fraud, processes may be revised and additional technology purchased to prevent a similar loss in the future, but for the most part, the company will shrug off the loss within weeks, sometimes just days.
Does that mean that small companies will automatically close their doors if they experience a $10 million loss? Not necessarily… As we’ll see below, it is actually a little more complicated than that.
Here is another quote from U.S. Attorney Steve Kaufman.
“The defendant’s pattern of theft negatively impacted the finances of Baierl Acura each and every year from 2005 through much of 2011. Fortunately, her activity did not affect Baierl’s timely payment of its payroll, tax and business obligation and liabilities.”
“No harm, no foul?” Patricia committed a crime, but the dealership didn’t suffer that much damage, right?
In my first blog post, I discussed the untold story of small business fraud. I noted that opportunities for the business to expand disappear while the fraudster lines their pockets with ill-gotten gains. In some respects, that is one of the saddest outcomes of fraud within a small business. It robs these businesses of their future.
As this case shows, some businesses can continue operations while a fraud scheme is running. However, the lack of cash puts the business on a different course – they just don’t know it…
With less cash in the bank, hiring decisions are delayed, bonuses canceled, and expansion plans shelved. What would Baierl Acura have done with the $10.2 “extra” dollars? We’ll never know. What we do know is that the business had earned that money. Here is a novel thought… the dealership could have kept the money in the bank and earned interest! They had the right to invest it as they saw fit. Patricia Smith did not have the right to use the money as she saw fit.
So what did Patricia do with the money?
We know that she bought real estate, cars and took luxury vacations, including a VIP trip to the Vatican. AUSA Kaufman can help answer the question.
“A large portion of the money also was wasted on gambling activity, both by herself and by at least one family member,”
Given that Smith had assets, how much of the $10.2 million does the government expect to recover?
$1 million… 10% of what she embezzled.
At the end of the day, the dealership waves bye-bye to $9 million ($9.2 to be exact) and well as the future that might have been. And we’re left with yet another sad ending involving internal fraud at a small business.
UPDATE: Patricia K. Smith sentenced to six and a half years. Read more here.
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