Stockton Corporation Controller Sentenced for Embezzling Nearly $1 Million from Employer

SACRAMENTO, CA—United States District Judge Troy L. Nunley sentenced Chris Barna, 34, of Manteca, today to three years and five months in prison for embezzling $980,191 from his employer M&C Association Management Services Inc., United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys S. Robert Tice-Raskin and Kevin Khasigian are prosecuting the case.

According to court documents, Barna was the controller for M&C, a company that provides community association management and developer services to numerous community associations in in Northern California. From April 2007 through May 2011, Barna misappropriated 318 checks payable to M&C from third parties, 56 checks payable to third parties from M&C, and two checks payable to the parent company of M&C. Barna forged the endorsements on the checks or wrote “deposit only.” He had the checks deposited into various bank accounts he controlled at Wells Fargo Bank. Barna then manipulated financial accounting records at M&C as part of an effort to conceal the fraud.

Judge Nunley ordered Barna to pay $1,016,500 in restitution to M&C and to forfeit his residence in Manteca as he had used some of the proceeds of the fraud to pay down the mortgage of that house. Barna was ordered to surrender for service of his sentence on February 7, 2014.