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September 24, 2019

Embezzlement case leads to prison, then home confinement for ex-employee

PHOTO | PIxabay.com
By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo

A woman who admitted embezzling more than $130,000 from her former Stratford employer was sentenced Monday to 30 days in prison.

Susanna Kurus, 44, of Garner, N.C., will be restricted to home confinement for 60 days following her month-long incarceration. U.S. District Court Judge Michael P. Shea imposed the sentence during a proceeding in Hartford. 

After that, Kurus must also be on supervised release for two years, when she has to perform 100 hours of community service. 

Shea also ordered Kurus to make full restitution in the amount of $133,870.55, the amount she stole in the scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Kurus pleaded guilty in March to one count of wire fraud. At the time of the offense, she lived in Fairfield and had been working as an accounting manager for a small company in Stratford. The government did not disclose the identity of the victim company. According to court documents, the company sells products throughout the country and world.

The company has a financial accounting system to receive payments from customers for products they buy. If customers overpay or return a product, this accounting system adds a credit to their account, which could either be refunded or applied to a later purchase.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, from approximately October 2014 to June 2017, Kurus used the company’s financial accounting software to transfer these customer credits to six personal debit card accounts. She then used the money to pay for her personal expenses.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ray Miller, who prosecuted the case, had asked the judge to impose a term of incarceration.

According to Miller, at the time of the offense, Kurus was earning a salary of about $100,000. The company discovered the fraud after she had left for another job and her former colleagues reviewed accounts she handled. 

Federal sentencing guidelines had called for a term of 15 to 21 months of imprisonment. Miller called it a “serious offense.”

“This was neither a crime of impulse nor a crime of short duration,” Miller wrote in a pre-sentencing memorandum. “It involved a number of steps committed over a long period of time. She accessed the financial systems, located unused credits, transferred these credits to her personal debit cards, and used various methods to cover her tracks. And she did this repeatedly over a period of about three years.”

“Simply put, a defendant who was earning about 100K per year stole another 133K,” Miller added. “The theft is significant in both an absolute and relative sense. The amount of money she stole is substantial, and the crime is made even more serious since she stole the money from a smaller business.”

Attorney Francis Lieto of Goldman, Gruder & Woods of Trumbull, who represented Kurus, asked the judge to impose a sentence of home confinement, noting that she has accepted responsibility for her actions and cooperated with law enforcement.

“Ms. Kurus has consistently expressed remorse for her actions,” Lieto said. 

According to Lieto, Kurus stole the funds because she was a single mother of three and she had to rely on a single income to support her family. 

Lieto also noted how she has no prior criminal record, and how she has made a commitment to making full restitution, including already paying back $18,000 of the money she took. 

Kurus is free on a $200,000 bond and must report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Jan. 6.

Contact Michelle Tuccitto Sullo at msullo@newhavenbiz.com

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