Ex-Employees Admit Embezzling $788K From NJ Law Firm
Two ex-employees have admitted embezzling $788,000 from an unidentified New Jersey law firm in less than three years.
Marla Deptula, 45, and Rose Crabbe, 31, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Trenton to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, the Star-Ledger reports.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a written statement that the two wrote checks against the Edison law firm’s business and trust accounts between February 2005 and September 2007 to pay personal expenses including credit card bills. He said they altered law firm financial records to try to cover up what they had done.
They could get as much as 20 years when they are sentenced in February.
The article doesn’t explain how the law firm and authorities became aware of the theft.
Thefts and claims of employee embezzlement from law firms are not unusual; the ABA Journal has reported on at least seven such cases within the last six months, as detailed in earlier posts:
Paralegal Is Arrested at NY Law Firm, Charged with Embezzling $250K
