Florida woman sentenced for embezzling more than $500k
Carrie Elizabeth Pifer, 28, of Port Orange, Florida, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for embezzling at least $510,000 from John's Appliance City where she had been employed as an administrator. However, John's Appliance owner John Hinton believes the actual theft is more than $750,000. According to reports, Pifer was responsible for taking each day's cash receipts and depositing them into the company bank account. She is alleged to have misappropriating the cash receipts for her own benefit over a period of more than 4 years, from at least January 1, 2006 through May 17, 2010. Pifer, who was originally charged with embezzlement in August 2010, was also ordered to pay restitution and will have an additional 10 years probation after her prison term.
Small Businesses continue to rank the HIGHEST in occupational fraud frequency and lose an average of $155,000 per fraud occurrence. according to the ACFE 2010 Report to the Nation. Read More
A solution to Segregation of Duty - Learn how to set up your Vital Internal Control System today. Help your clients protect their business with Vitalics. Become an affiliate, it is free. To learn more click here.
EMBEZZLEMENT
Defined as the crime of stealing the funds or property of an employer, company or government or misappropriating money or assets held in trust.
White Collar Crime
White-collar criminals are opportunists, who over time learn they can take advantage of their circumstances to accumulate financial gain. They are educated, intelligent, affluent, confident individuals, who were qualified enough to get a job which allows them the unmonitored access to often large sums of money. Many also use their intelligence to con their victims into believing and trusting in their credentials. Many do not start out as criminals, and in many cases never see themselves as such.
