ABS-CBN News has reported that a Filipino payroll clerk is now behind bars on charges of embezzlement and grand theft worth $2.6 Million. Maria Lourdes Dionisio of Pacifica, California, together with Hannah Yau, a financial analyst, were arrested on July 28 by the San Francisco Police Department for their alleged involvement in a scam. The two pled not guilty to the charges during their arraignment at the San Francisco Superior Court Thursday.
Dionisio and Yau are accused of wrongfully issuing checks to themselves over a four-year period, resulting in $2.6 million worth of losses to their employer, Autonomy Inc., a San Francisco software programming company with headquarters in England.
Newspaper reports quoted District Attorney Kamala Harris describing it as a well-planned scam. "To pull off a fraud of this magnitude over a number of years is about more than just being a rogue employee. There is a level of planning and sophistication involved here that makes this crime especially egregious," said Harris.
For reasons not related to the theft, Dionisio was fired in May. She then filed for unemployment insurance. Supposedly to get more benefits, Dionisio listed an annual salary of $449,740 which was a far cry from her base salary of $63,000.
It was then that the alleged embezzlement was discovered, said Harris.
Dionisio and Yau told Judge Samuel Feng that they could not afford to pay for their own lawyers. Bail was set at $ 1 million for each defendant who face a sentence of up to six years in prison, if found guilty. (AJPress)
( Published July 31, 2010 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. A5 )
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
