Fitchburg Woman Pleads Guilty to Embezzling Over $1.3 Million from Employer

Thursday, June 16, 2016

GoLocalWorcester News Team

Dawnmarie Prince, 47, a former Fitchburg office manager pleaded guilty on Tuesday to embezzling more than $1.3 million from her employer over a ten year period. Her sentencing is set for September 14, 2016.

The Incident

Prince worked as an office manager at a Woburn-based life science technology firm where she was responsible for handling the firm's accounts payable. Since at least 2005 through May 2015, Prince used her position as office manager to steal hundreds of the company's checks, which she made payable to herself or to her son. She then forged her boss's signature on the stolen checks, and deposited them into her personal bank accounts.

In order to conceal her criminal conduct and avoid detection, Prince removed copies of the negotiated checks when sent back by the bank, and she falsified entries into the bookkeeping software program to make it look as if the stolen checks had been used to pay legitimate vendors. In total, Prince embezzled over $1.3 million which she spent on personal expenses.

Prior Conviction

In 2001, Prince was convicted of mail fraud for defrauding a previous employer and sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution.

Prince was employed as a claims analyst for a subsidiary company of a Boston-based health plan. Shortly after starting the job, Prince created and submitted numerous false medical provider claims to the health plan. That resulted in Prince receiving nearly $50,000 in claims checks, which she endorsed and deposited into her personal bank account.

Prince's most recent fraud came to light after Prince provided false and incomplete financial information to the U.S. Attorney's Office's Financial Litigation Unit, which was responsible for collecting the outstanding restitution payments in 2001.

Sentence

Prince now faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $1,000,000 fine on each of the bank fraud counts along with a mandatory consecutive term of two years in prison, one year of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for the aggravated identity theft charge.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordi de Llano of Ortiz’s Major Crimes Unit.