Bookkeeper stole $1M from SC business: feds

Karen Rhett was the bookkeeper at a South Carolina genuine estate company for the superior component of 25 many years, in accordance to federal court paperwork.

She was also embezzling from it, prosecutors stated.

A federal decide sentenced the 59-yr-outdated to a few yrs in prison on Monday, April 4, following she pleaded responsible to felony rates very last yr. She was also purchased to shell out three yrs on supervised launch and fork out restitution.

Rhett’s protection legal professional did not straight away react to McClatchy News’ ask for for comment on April 6. But he stated in court filings that she took entire responsibility for the theft after the FBI confirmed up at her household in Mount Enjoyable, just exterior of Charleston, in 2020.

“Painfully, and with deep sorrow, she admits that she took benefit of her situation of rely on as a bookkeeper,” mentioned George Rutledge DuRant, who represented Rhett. “She admits that her theft was enduring and commenced prolonged in the past with a comparatively tiny quantity of dollars. It escalated with time. The extra she stole, the more durable it turned to cease.”

In accordance to court paperwork, Rhett labored for Simmons Realty Enterprise, a genuine estate agency operate by David and Elizabeth Simmons.

“It took 3 lengthy yrs of tedious investigative function by the loved ones and a forensic accountant (former IRS Unique Agent) to uncover this innovative and advanced fraudulent scheme,” Bart Daniel, who represented the Simmons, told McClatchy Information in a statement. “The Simmons Spouse and children is relieved that justice has finally been served.”

Prosecutors explained Rhett oversaw the company’s accounting and business enterprise records and was “in a situation of trust” when she allegedly started siphoning off dollars.

She is accused of transferring funds to herself, typically moving the resources between other organization entities in advance of it sooner or later landed in her account. Rhett also produced up enterprise invoices for bogus expenses and wrote checks to herself right before recording the payments as reputable, the governing administration said.

The Simmons ultimately fired her, and FBI agents frequented Rhett at property in July 2020, courtroom paperwork condition.

In accordance to her legal professional, Rhett confessed to the embezzlement the following month and commenced cooperating with federal investigators.

“It must be understood that Karen created the decision to confess completely on her have and speedily, in a single 7 days of the F.B.I. knocking upon the doorway of her dwelling,” her lawyer explained.

Rhett sold the 4,000-square-foot property she shared with her husband and daughter for $982,000 in December 2020, according to genuine estate listings. Her law firm reported she wrote a verify for restitution totaling $640,633 and submitted it to the court docket in January 2021.

Rhett was charged by legal details and pleaded responsible to charges of wire fraud and creating false statements, court docket documents show. Her attorney explained she was fired from her new occupation at a holistic nutrition retail store when information of the guilty plea broke in April 2021.

Rhett subsequently began a business, Cupcake Bouquets by Karen, through which she bakes and sells “delicious and inventive, primarily floral in design and style, cupcakes,” her lawyer explained.

From August 2021 to February 2022, he claimed, she has bought $3,648 worth of cupcakes.

“Karen is convinced that Cupcake Bouquets by Karen, LLC would manage her the implies by which she can make meaningful payments towards whole restitution,” her attorney said in sentencing documents. “In conditions of having on new orders and making this company as it stands now, Karen has been thorough not to get on much too numerous new orders or to increase much too quickly as her imminent long run is, at very best, unsure.”

Rhett’s attorney had asked the decide to sentence her to a time period of house confinement, pointing in portion to her struggles with melancholy since the prices arrived to mild and a current diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.

He also mentioned it is significant for Rhett to be property with her 21-year-aged daughter, who has reportedly struggled with her have mental wellbeing following a shorter-lived career as a singer-songwriter. According to sentencing paperwork, her daughter earlier sang at “various east coast faculty gymnasiums and general performance halls with a information from bullying” as a teen.

Rhett submitted 6 letters of support penned by her therapist and different spouse and children members also contacting for leniency.

“Karen has experienced the consequences of a self-imposed sentence, disgrace and guilt in advance of her mates and household and the total neighborhood,” her attorney mentioned. “She has endured the loss of almost her every possession and she has experienced the constant agony of dim despair. She has been punished seriously presently.”

At sentencing, the decide recommended Rhett provide her prison sentence at FPC Alderson in West Virginia so that she can obtain health care treatment. Once she is produced, the judge barred her from obtaining any make contact with with the victims.

The sum of restitution she owes is listed as “TBD” in the courtroom docket.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 6:33 PM.

Hayley Fowler is a reporter at The Charlotte Observer covering breaking and true-time information throughout North and South Carolina. She has a journalism diploma from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and formerly labored as a authorized reporter in New York Metropolis ahead of joining the Observer in 2019.