BELLINGHAM, Wash. — This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com.
A former assistant office manager for a Bellingham business was sentenced to prison for a $1.4 million embezzlement scheme.
Amy Siniscarco, a 46-year-old from Sedro-Wooley, will spend two years behind bars for wire fraud and filing false tax returns, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington reported Friday.
Siniscarco was the assistant office manager for a regional hardware retail and leasing business from 2013 to 2022, and was being trained to take over as the office manager.
Ex-manager used various schemes to embezzle from Bellingham business
She used a variety of methods to steal company funds, the attorney’s office stated, citing records filed in the case.
Siniscarco issued fraudulent company checks to herself and to organizations where she controlled the financial accounts. She also initiated unauthorized electronic payments to herself, made unauthorized personal purchases on company credit cards, and misappropriated the company’s petty cash.
Siniscarco would forge signatures or convince colleagues with signing authority to sign blank checks for what seemed like legitimate purposes. She also altered the company books to make it look like the payments were to legitimate vendors or for tax purposes.
Instead of cancelling credit cards, Siniscarco would use the cards to make unauthorized purchases for herself, including more than 1,800 unauthorized transactions on her Amazon account, the attorney’s office stated.
She would have the credit card statements sent electronically to only her work email address.
Siniscarco used the funds to pay her mortgage, buy cars, fund her travel, pay her childcare and healthcare, and purchase securities.
“While Siniscarco lived above her means with stolen funds, her coworkers lost out on bonuses and profit sharing,” the attorney’s office wrote.
Over the five years charged in the case, Siniscarco did not report $956,323 in income on her tax returns, leading to a tax loss of $226,826.
“While Ms. Siniscarco was lining her pockets with embezzled funds, the company was forced to endure budget cuts and borrow at high interest to stay afloat. Ms. Siniscarco’s colleagues also lost bonuses and profit sharing,” Assistant United States Attorney Jehiel Baer wrote to the court. “The whole time, Ms. Siniscarco knew she was secretly stealing, placing the company’s financial security — and her colleagues’ jobs — at risk. When her fraud was finally discovered, Ms. Siniscarco instead placed blame on innocent coworkers, further degrading the trust the company had placed in her.”
Judge Whitehead ordered Siniscarco to pay $1,424,696 in restitution to the company and $226,826 to the U.S. Treasury.
Siniscarco was also ordered to three years of supervised release following her prison term.
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