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Press Release

Accountant sentenced to prison for embezzling over one million dollars from employer

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Georgia

ATLANTA – Stantisha D. Kemp, an accounting manager who embezzled over $1.2 million dollars from her employer over a six-year period has been sentenced.

“Kemp’s egregious misconduct threatened the financial soundness of her company when she stole over one million dollars,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak.  “Businesses should build in checks and balances in their accounting procedures that safeguard their assets from fraud.”

“Hopefully this sentencing makes a statement that the FBI is committed to making cases like this a strong deterrent to the temptation of greed,” said Ricardo Grave de Peralta, Acting Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “Kemp not only defrauded the company she worked for, she also violated the trust they put in her.”

According to U.S. Attorney Pak, the charges and other information presented in court: From 2007 to 2013, Kemp served as a payroll and accounting manager of an Atlanta-based company that developed medical technology. During that time, Kemp embezzled over $1.2 million dollars by falsifying payroll records sent to a third-party payroll processing company and instructing the payroll processor to direct deposit funds into her personal bank accounts on a monthly basis. 

Kemp falsely instructed the payroll processing company that a doctor with the initials Y.H.J. was a company employee, and she further instructed the payroll processing company to direct deposit Y.H.J.’s salary payments into her personal bank accounts.  She concealed her scheme by preparing a set of fabricated internal payroll records that made no mention of Y.H.J., who had not been employed by the company since early April 2010.  Nonetheless, Y.H.J.’s unauthorized salary payments were deposited into Kemp’s personal bank accounts, month after month, until February 2013.    

Kemp was sentenced to two years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release on August 1, 2018. She was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $1,253,287.     

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant U.S Attorney Kamal Ghali, Deputy Chief of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crime Section, prosecuted the case.

For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016.  The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.

Updated August 2, 2018

Topic
Financial Fraud