Sarah Sanville Imprisoned for $400,000 Embezzlement

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont announced that Sarah Sanville, 32, of Lyndonville, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Burlington to 15 months of imprisonment following her guilty plea a charge of uttering forged checks from her employer. U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions, III ordered that Sanville serve a three-year term of supervised release following completion of her prison term. The court also ordered that Sanville pay restitution in the amount of $417,000, perform 100 hours of community service and forfeit her interest in a pick-up truck and a lawnmower that were bought with stolen funds. Sanville was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on September 4 to begin serving her sentence.

On October 19, 2011, a federal grand jury in Rutland returned a one-count indictment accusing Sanville of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from her employer, Radiantec Company Inc., of Lyndonville. According to the indictment, Sanville was employed by Radiantec as a bookkeeper. She handled accounts payable and receivable and payroll and had access to the company’s check stock and the signature stamp of the authorized signer on the company’s checking account.

According to court records, Sanville began embezzling money from Radiantec not later than the fall of 2002 by writing checks to herself or to other persons or organizations for her own benefit, then forging the authorized signer’s signature on the checks or using the signature stamp without authorization. She then deposited the checks into her own bank accounts or otherwise benefitted from them. The embezzlement was detected in 2011.

This case was investigated by the Vermont State Police and the Burlington Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Sanville is represented by Federal Public Defender Michael Desautels. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.