Adel Woman Pleads Guilty to Fraud and Tax Charges After Embezzling at Least $480,000 from Her Employer
Stacey Lynne Gross Wrote Unauthorized Checks to Pay Personal Debts and Falsified the Company Books to Conceal Her Actions
| U.S. Attorney’s Office November 18, 2011 |
DES MOINES, IA—Stacey Lynne Gross, age 38, of Adel, Iowa, pled guilty today to mail fraud and tax fraud charges arising out of her embezzlement of at least $480,000 from her employer, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt.
Gross was the office manager for Data Business Equipment, Inc., in Des Moines between late 2007 and early 2011. Her job responsibilities included writing checks from the company account to pay for business expenses. Gross admitted in her plea agreement that she wrote at least 190 unauthorized checks totaling more than $480,000 from the company account for her own personal benefit during her employment. She wrote checks to her credit card company and mortgage lender, and to pay for furniture, jewelry, and other personal expenses. She admitted to using the United States mails to send some of the fraudulent checks to her creditors and to failing to report the illegal income on her tax returns.
Gross admitted to making false entries in the company’s books to conceal her embezzlement. She would enter the name of a real Data Business Equipment vendor as the “payee” on the company’s general ledgers for checks she had actually written to her own creditors.
Gross will be sentenced on February 17, 2012. The crime of mail fraud carries maximum penalties of 20 years’ imprisonment, a $1 million fine, and five years of supervised release. The crime of making a false statement on a tax return carries maximum penalties of three years’ imprisonment, a $100,000 fine, and one year of supervised release. Gross also will be required to pay restitution and a special assessment of $500.
This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Urbandale, Iowa, Police Department, and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.