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West Lyden Woman Sentenced for Embezzling from Employers

U.S. Attorney's Office October 23, 2010
  • Northern District of New York (315) 448-0672

United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian announced today the sentencing of MELISSA WAGNER-DANO.

WAGNER-DANO, 34, of West Lyden, New York, had pled guilty on April 19, 2010 to fraudulently obtaining money from the Town of Lewis, Oneida Lewis Milk Producers Cooperative (OLMPC), and the Boonville Farms Cooperative, Inc. (BFC) while she served as bookkeeper for those entities. Between approximately January 2007 and up to December 1, 2009, she fraudulently embezzled over $1 million from the Town of Lewis and the milk cooperatives by various means.

WAGNER-DANO transferred monies between and among the Town of Lewis, BFC and OLMPC bank accounts and subsequently withdrew funds from those accounts for her own personal use. She withdrew the money by wire transfer; via the Internet; and by writing checks payable to herself. Wagner-Dano wrote checks payable to herself for as little as $350 and for as much as $49,276.35. She wrote the checks payable to “Melissa Dano” and affixed the signature “Melissa Wagner” as the authorized signature on the checks. Wagner-Dano also used an Intuit QuickBooks payroll program to transfer monies from the Town of Lewis account at Community Bank to the BFC account at Community Bank and the OLMPC account at Key Bank. She then withdrew the money she had transferred into those accounts for her own use.

On October 22, 2010, the defendant was sentenced by Chief Judge Norman A. Mordue in federal court in Syracuse. Chief Judge Mordue imposed a term of 78 months' imprisonment and ordered restitution in the amount of $1,016,867.46 with $438,750.00 due immediately. WANGER DANO was immediately remanded to the custody of the United States Marshals to begin service of her sentence.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward R. Broton.

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