A former San Antonio bookkeeper has been sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for stealing $1.6 million from the law firm where she worked, a news release said.
Irene M. Scott, 42, was a bookkeeper and financial manager for a private law firm in San Antonio, the Justice Department said.
She pleaded guilty last May 25 to three counts of wire fraid and one count of bank fraud, the government said.
"Scott admitted that from 2012 to 2020, she used three office credit cards assigned to other employees to make non-firm related purchases totaling over $1.2 million," the news release said. :An estimated three-fourths of those funds went to support her husband’s outdoor lighting business."
Scott also stole an estimated $417,000 by withdrawing money from the firm’s operating account about 200 times d beginning in January 2018, the news release said.
She disguised the withdrawals as vendor payments without authorization from any members of the first , the government said.
“The sentencing of Ms. Scott today should sound the alarm to those planning to steal from their employers with the idea that they are going to cook the books to hide their crimes,” U.S. Attorney Ashley C. Hoff said in a statement. “You will be investigated, identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Scott worked for the law f between August 2011 and February 2020, the news release said.
" Her duties included issuing business credit cards to employees and closing those credit card accounts when an employee separated from the firm," prosecutors said.
