Criminal stupidity

[midjd]

Almost every time I read an embezzlement story, I'm astonished by the low dollar amount it took the defendant to risk his/her livelihood and ability to ever get a decent job. 

One of my elementary school classmates began working for the local police department after HS and eventually became the jail commander. She was just charged with several federal felonies (including RICO charges) for stealing $7K in cash bonds. 

Are you kidding me? If you're going to commit a felony by stealing from the government, do it for enough to get yourself out of the country.  (Joking, I am not advocating anyone ever commit any felonies, especially against the government.) She is 33, was earning a higher-than-average salary in a VLCOLA, and will now probably have a lot of trouble finding more than a minimum wage job unless she leaves the state.

But stories about embezzlement of amounts just over the felony limit seem much more common than larger amounts. Why do people do it?

[Deleted]

What always gets me about embezzlement cases is the "innocent spouse."  A high school friend of my ex embezzled fifty thousand or so from the insurance company where she worked.  Her husband somehow didn't notice that they had way more dollars to spend?  Sure, she could have bought a lot of clothes, etc.  I am sure she did.

But still . . . I would have noticed if my ex had bought a new suit or several new shirts or whatever.  And given the amount she stole, they were doing vacations, etc.

Are people really that clueless as to how much money their spouses are spending?  I'm not, and DH and I have separate finances.  I still pay attention to his spending habits.

[hoops902]

People do it because they want to steal and it's a lot harder to do it with bigger dollar amounts. Would these people LIKE to steal millions? Probably, but most probably don't have access...and if they do there are greater controls around it.

[swamp]

Like attorneys who get disbarred for,taking $15k from their escrow accounts. They lose their livelihood and ability to earn 6 figures over piddly amounts.

If I'm going to,steal something, it's going to have lots of 0's after the first number and you won't see me afterwards.

[msventoux]

My favorite was a lady who stole tens of thousands of dollars from her employer over several years because she felt unappreciated. They eventually caught on and confronted her. She confessed and had an hours long diatribe about why she did it, how under appreciated she was, and if they’d been nicer to her it would never have happened, etc.

Turns out she put all the money in a savings account and never touched any of it, she truly did it to teach them a lesson of some sort. She even showed them how she took some money they hadn’t found out about yet; she kept meticulous records. She returned all the money plus the interest earned, and they apologized for their behavior and didn’t prosecute her. And they kept her employed for a couple of more years until her retirement...but well away from having access to any funds.

Utterly bizarre. She supposedly never brought up her grievances before. I would have done so years ago. And if I was her employer I certainly wouldn’t have kept employing her after the fact.

[Lizard Queen]

I don't know, I just think some people have sticky finger syndrome. The thought of people just taking things that don't belong to them disgusts me, but my DB has it. His DS stole from his mom or something, and my brother had a hard time even disciplining him about it because he did the same kind of thing as a kid. I wonder if there is some impulsivity gene that just makes people more likely to. My little guy tried to steal my mom's $$ out of my purse last year. Hopefully I beat that idea out of him--not literally, of course. He was 4, and I made it known to him in no uncertain terms that kind of behavior was completely and utterly unacceptable.

Maybe these people had parents that made excuses for them? Or maybe they thought the smallish amounts wouldn't be noticed as much? I'm surprised by people in my city that are in charge of recreational funds and whatnot, that are able to steal 10's of thousands. I think some treasurer or something for the local soccer club stole over $50k from it. First of all, how is there so much money sitting there, and how was it not noticed before so much was missing?

[TheOtherMe]

The blame around here tends to be the casinos.  I didn't live here when there were no casinos so I don't know if embezzlement is more prevalent now than before.  I am amazed at the relatively small amounts of money people take.

In the last couple of weeks a woman on a work release program was supposed to be doing the deposit for her shift at a convenience store.  Apparently she didn't realize they had security cameras.  Instead of putting the deposit (less than $1000) in the safe, she put it in her purse.  She then proceeded to not return to the work release house.  She was arrested the same night.  

[chapeau]

We had a neighbor who stole somewhere in the neighborhood of 100k. She was caught because her employer noticed she was living a “luxurious lifestyle.” Which both my father and I found hilarious, because if pressed we would have described them as “proud but poor”. The kind of people who are neat and clean, but probably haven’t purchased a new item of clothing in years, living on beans and rice, their house was tidy, but not fancy, and picking up random odd jobs as available. They both were poll workers on Election Day, worked on call for caterers for cash or leftovers, I think she sold plasma occasionally, etc. I have no idea who in a first world country would describe their lifestyle as luxurious. I’m not entirely sure i’d even call it very comfortable. The husband was on disability, and had either a brain tumor or some kind of cancer. She committed suicide the day after the company began their first audit in years. The employer declined to prosecute him.
Honestly, around here most people were openly hostile to her employer. They were very nice people, probably driven to desperate measures by his medical bills, and too proud/embarrassed to ask for help. Most of us felt that an employer who is too stupid to audit regularly and chose to grossly underpay employees with unfettered access to that kind of money deserved what they got. The person they hired to replace her made about $20k/year more than she did. (Small town, they hired the wife of one of DH’s friends.)

[midjd]

People do it because they want to steal and it's a lot harder to do it with bigger dollar amounts. Would these people LIKE to steal millions? Probably, but most probably don't have access...and if they do there are greater controls around it.

I can see how, with easy access to semi-large sums and/or minimal oversight, it would seem easy to pinch a few dollars here and there and assume you wouldn't get caught. The part I don't understand is where you get into the thousands range (which I think in most cases involves a substantial risk of detection and federal charges) without it being enough thousands to get you a good head start somewhere else. Especially if you don't have a drug/shopping/gambling addiction as motivation to steal.

Chapeau, that's sad. I could definitely see the public opinion turning against the employer in that situation. 

Almost all the comments on the Facebook post discussing my classmate's arrest are from inmates/inmates' family members who had previously noticed there was some monkey business going on with the bond amounts but were given some BS story at the time. It's like a virtual HS class reunion on there...

[swamp]

It's easy to pinch small amounts.  The downfall is that the thief gets greedy and over confident.  If they kept up the small amounts, nobody would notice. 

[alabamagal]

Dec 29, 2017 9:52:16 GMT -5 swamp said:

It's easy to pinch small amounts.  The downfall is that the thief gets greedy and over confident.  If they kept up the small amounts, nobody would notice. 

That is why when DH and I had a small retail business, we balanced the drawer to the penny every night.  Well maybe I should say to the dollar, we counted every penny of change, and the expectation was to be within +/- $1 every night.  When we had good honest employees, it was never a problem.  But we also had a single shared cash register.  There were a couple of times when we had employees who would take $5 a day and think no one would notice.  A lot of times the other employees would get so pissed off if someone was taking money, that it would stop it from happening.  And we fired 2 employees over stealing small amounts of money.  They were taking $5 a day of MY money.

We also had an employee steal ~$2k one time.  We tried opening a 2nd store and hired a former employee to manage.  She had worked 2 years without any problem and then left to become a police officer, then returned to work for us.  She just basically started taking cash payments and not ringing into register, and it got bad when we were away on vacation.  Actually a close friend of ours at the bank alerted us that the nightly deposits were checks only, no cash.

Ahh, the life of a business owner.  I don't miss it.

[thyme4change]

My 78 year old relative (of some number and times removed) just spent two years in jail for embezzling a few hundred thousand dollars. I'm surprised it didn't kill him.

What gets me is when I watched shows like Snapped or Forensic Files and people kill their spouse for a $50k insurance policy, or some other amount that doesn't seem to be worth the risk of going to prison for murder over.

[alabamagal]

Dec 29, 2017 14:45:52 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

My 78 year old relative (of some number and times removed) just spent two years in jail for embezzling a few hundred thousand dollars. I'm surprised it didn't kill him.

What gets me is when I watched shows like Snapped or Forensic Files and people kill their spouse for a $50k insurance policy, or some other amount that doesn't seem to be worth the risk of going to prison for murder over.

I love those shows, but they are only showing the ones who get caught...

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2017 14:45:52 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

My 78 year old relative (of some number and times removed) just spent two years in jail for embezzling a few hundred thousand dollars. I'm surprised it didn't kill him.

What gets me is when I watched shows like Snapped or Forensic Files and people kill their spouse for a $50k insurance policy, or some other amount that doesn't seem to be worth the risk of going to prison for murder over.

I love those shows. It seems like women especially like to kill with poison.
I watched a Locked Up Abroad marathon the other day.
$15-20k, 10+ years in some hellhole prison somewhere for 20k.
They are either thrill seekers or just nuts. It can't be just for the $.

[Deleted]

They used to put small coupons in the mail to see if letter carriers would steal them and they busted a guy in the town I grew up in. Risking a 60k a year job with good bennys for a $20 coupon.

He didn’t get fired but got significantly reprimanded as I recall.

[beergut]

Dec 28, 2017 18:51:03 GMT -5 midjd said:

Almost every time I read an embezzlement story, I'm astonished by the low dollar amount it took the defendant to risk his/her livelihood and ability to ever get a decent job. 

One of my elementary school classmates began working for the local police department after HS and eventually became the jail commander. She was just charged with several federal felonies (including RICO charges) for stealing $7K in cash bonds. 

Are you kidding me? If you're going to commit a felony by stealing from the government, do it for enough to get yourself out of the country.  (Joking, I am not advocating anyone ever commit any felonies, especially against the government.) She is 33, was earning a higher-than-average salary in a VLCOLA, and will now probably have a lot of trouble finding more than a minimum wage job unless she leaves the state.

But stories about embezzlement of amounts just over the felony limit seem much more common than larger amounts. Why do people do it?

Is it a possibility that the only embezzlement stories you're hearing about make the news because they are felonies that hit over $5k? And anything below that isn't newsworthy and when the person is caught and fired, you don't hear about it? 

Maybe these people are caught before greed drives them to take a large enough amount to escape the country. 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

I agree mid.


I have the same feeling about robberies - people who commit armed robbery of a convenience store or gas station for about 5k. 

For me anything less than what you could yourself earn in 6 months is ludicrous.

There is likely a thrill component to both that us law abiders cannot understand.

[jkapp]

Dec 29, 2017 9:52:16 GMT -5 swamp said:

It's easy to pinch small amounts.  The downfall is that the thief gets greedy and over confident.  If they kept up the small amounts, nobody would notice. 

Unless its somewhere with a lot of cameras   At the casino I worked for, there was a deli cashier that was consistently under in her till by about $20-30.  In reviewing the cameras, they found her pocketing $20 when giving change to a customer.  I mean, come on!  Its a casino!  There are literally cameras everywhere...they were probably able to get three or four different angles on the theft

[zibazinski]

I used to tell my kids if they stole it better be the Hope Diamond not some $5 earrings from Claire’s.

[Timberwolf]

Dec 31, 2017 22:16:28 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I used to tell my kids if they stole it better be the Hope Diamond not some $5 earrings from Claire’s.

That reminds me of me and my sister's criminal past.  We pierced our own ears when I was 10 and she was 12 years old.  We had no money for earrings so we would steal them from the local variety type store.  My mom started noticing all our new acquisitions and put 2 & 2 together.  She told us the manager of the store was looking for two girls who were stealing earrings.  We were so naïve we believed her (and scared).  I don't think we ever went to that store again.

[zibazinski]

Dec 31, 2017 22:43:43 GMT -5 Timberwolf said:

Dec 31, 2017 22:16:28 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I used to tell my kids if they stole it better be the Hope Diamond not some $5 earrings from Claire’s.

That reminds me of me and my sister's criminal past.  We pierced our own ears when I was 10 and she was 12 years old.  We had no money for earrings so we would steal them from the local variety type store.  My mom started noticing all our new acquisitions and put 2 & 2 together.  She told us the manager of the store was looking for two girls who were stealing earrings.  We were so naïve we believed her (and scared).  I don't think we ever went to that store again.

Your mother was brilliant. My aunt got kids to not pee in her pool by telling them the pee would follow them around and she'd know who did it and they wouldn't be allowed back !

[happyhoix]

I had a co-worker who embezzled from petty cash. Turns out, he had married a really controlling woman who kept his whole paycheck and only gave him 20 bucks per week in spending money. (She also laid out his clothes for him every day). Unfortunately, he loved going to the strip club and sticking 1 dollar bills in lady's g-strings.

He couldn't figure out a way to get money from his wife for his habit, so he started hitting the petty cash. He also stole someone's paycheck (she had cashed it and put it into her desk drawer in an envelope - stupid).

The accountant guessed what was happening, so the boss got a dye that only showed under black lights, and put it all over the petty cash. Then the next time it disappeared, the boss pulled him into his office and asked him if he wanted to quit, or should he get the black light and check out his hands - and if he (the boss) had to get the blacklight, he was also going to call the cops and have the guy arrested for theft.

The guy quit. Last I heard, he and his wife and their three young kids had to sell their house and move into the basement of her parent's house. He was going to work for his father in law at a furniture store (I'm guessing, not handling any money). No more strip clubs for him, probably.

I thought that was the worst, but later, we had an ex-employee who was arrested (and his face plastered on TV) for defrauding older people who were attempting to purchase tombstones. Took their money and never delivered. What an exceptionally shitty human being.

[tractor]

The office manager at my former employer would use the company credit card to buy personal things, then pay off the credit cards using the 401k funds withheld from employees pay checks. It worked great, until myself and one other employee started tracking our contributions to see how well we were doing in the market. After bringing it to our bosses attention, they were able to uncover $200,000+ in losses that she used for everything from a kitchen remodel to family vacations (she always told us the $ was a gift from her mother, who were we to doubt her story).

Fortunately the companies insurance company covered all the losses and she’s now in jail. Kind of sad considering she was paid a decent wage, but got caught up in wanting more than she had.

[midjd]

Jan 2, 2018 15:26:08 GMT -5 tractor said:

The office manager at my former employer would use the company credit card to buy personal things, then pay off the credit cards using the 401k funds withheld from employees pay checks. It worked great, until myself and one other employee started tracking our contributions to see how well we were doing in the market. After bringing it to our bosses attention, they were able to uncover $200,000+ in losses that she used for everything from a kitchen remodel to family vacations (she always told us the $ was a gift from her mother, who were we to doubt her story).

Fortunately the companies insurance company covered all the losses and she’s now in jail. Kind of sad considering she was paid a decent wage, but got caught up in wanting more than she had.

Hoo boy, I'd probably end up in jail myself if I found out someone was stealing my 401(k) contributions! Somehow I doubt that the insurance policy would reimburse the loss of value from not being invested during that time... (I guess it could work in your favor during a down year, but a market year like 2017, whooo...... I'm mad just thinking about it!)

[NastyWoman]

Jan 2, 2018 15:26:08 GMT -5 tractor said:

The office manager at my former employer would use the company credit card to buy personal things, then pay off the credit cards using the 401k funds withheld from employees pay checks. It worked great, until myself and one other employee started tracking our contributions to see how well we were doing in the market. After bringing it to our bosses attention, they were able to uncover $200,000+ in losses that she used for everything from a kitchen remodel to family vacations (she always told us the $ was a gift from her mother, who were we to doubt her story).

Fortunately the companies insurance company covered all the losses and she’s now in jail. Kind of sad considering she was paid a decent wage, but got caught up in wanting more than she had.

Stupid question but suppose the insurance company had not covered the losses, wouldn't the company have been obligated to make up the lost money? I mean the employees would have to have been made whole either way right?

[bean29]

I imagine that story is at least several years old. IRS requires 401K funds to be remitted weekly, not a lot of “float” room there any more. Used to be monthly, But I am thinking it has been weekly for at least 3 years now.

[toomuchreality]

When I was a cashier for a local utility company, we had to balance our drawers every night, to the penny. The first time the auditors came to do an audit, my drawer was off by $5 even. I freaked out! I was sure they would think I had taken it and I would lose my job. I cried and cried. It turned out to just be an error. They found my error. I really did balance and all was good.  -Whew! 

I've never stolen from my employer. I have worked with a few people that did though. They got away with it for awhile. But they were eventually busted.

I guess you don't hear about the people that are good at it, because they are good at it. It just wouldn't be worth it to me. No way. I couldn't live with the guilt and the stress.

[tractor]

Jan 3, 2018 3:38:06 GMT -5 bean29 said:

I imagine that story is at least several years old. IRS requires 401K funds to be remitted weekly, not a lot of “float” room there any more. Used to be monthly, But I am thinking it has been weekly for at least 3 years now.

This occurred 6 years ago, so the rules may have changed by now to prevent such things. She went so far as to put a blocker on the owners e-mail that anything containing the words 401k or IRS never showed up in their in box. They were completely clueless, and trusted way too much in her to handle things. She has been with the company since the beginning (over 15 years).

[TheOtherMe]

Jan 3, 2018 4:20:32 GMT -5 toomuchreality said:

When I was a cashier for a local utility company, we had to balance our drawers every night, to the penny. The first time the auditors came to do an audit, my drawer was off by $5 even. I freaked out! I was sure they would think I had taken it and I would lose my job. I cried and cried. It turned out to just be an error. They found my error. I really did balance and all was good.  -Whew! 

I've never stolen from my employer. I have worked with a few people that did though. They got away with it for awhile. But they were eventually busted.

I guess you don't hear about the people that are good at it, because they are good at it. It just wouldn't be worth it to me. No way. I couldn't live with the guilt and the stress.

I would be like you.  

My parents drilled in to us that you do not steal.  I never have.  The day I retired, my boss told me I got to keep my briefcase and everything that was in it.  It was office supplies, like staples, paper clips, etc.  I felt guilty but he said they would toss it if I left it.  

At the IRS, we tried to get people not to pay us in cash.  If they did, we had to fill out all kinds of paperwork and immediately take it to the office to be handled.  I have had people ask if they should make out checks for my audit findings to me.  No, to the IRS.

At two CPA firms and the church, I did the deposit.  I couldn't live with myself either.  

[beergut]

Jan 2, 2018 12:20:46 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I had a co-worker who embezzled from petty cash. Turns out, he had married a really controlling woman who kept his whole paycheck and only gave him 20 bucks per week in spending money. (She also laid out his clothes for him every day). Unfortunately, he loved going to the strip club and sticking 1 dollar bills in lady's g-strings.

He couldn't figure out a way to get money from his wife for his habit, so he started hitting the petty cash. He also stole someone's paycheck (she had cashed it and put it into her desk drawer in an envelope - stupid).

The accountant guessed what was happening, so the boss got a dye that only showed under black lights, and put it all over the petty cash. Then the next time it disappeared, the boss pulled him into his office and asked him if he wanted to quit, or should he get the black light and check out his hands - and if he (the boss) had to get the blacklight, he was also going to call the cops and have the guy arrested for theft.

The guy quit. Last I heard, he and his wife and their three young kids had to sell their house and move into the basement of her parent's house. He was going to work for his father in law at a furniture store (I'm guessing, not handling any money). No more strip clubs for him, probably.

I thought that was the worst, but later, we had an ex-employee who was arrested (and his face plastered on TV) for defrauding older people who were attempting to purchase tombstones. Took their money and never delivered. What an exceptionally shitty human being.

Prison would have been a relief for him.