A woman has been arrested in an ongoing theft and fraud case.
The investigation into the 45-year-old woman began in September of 2024, when an officer was contacted by a Manitowoc business owner, whose name and business were redacted.
They claimed the suspect had embezzled several thousand dollars under the ruse of preparing and filing individual and business taxes with the state and IRS.
The suspect was hired in 2019 to handle the business owner’s personal and business taxes.
She submitted tax filings between 2018 and 2023, and eventually requested the victim’s login information for their bank to directly transfer funds.
Since 2019, the suspect transferred over $43,000 from the victim’s account to her own, and only $1,780 was used to pay towards the business’s taxes.
Three refund checks were issued to the business over those years, which the owner claimed they never received.
Additionally, the 2018, 2019, and 2020 individual taxes were filed late, the 2021 and 2022 taxes were never filed, and the 2023 taxes were filed after another accountant was hired to do what the suspect had not done.
The suspect was arrested on Wednesday (March 19th) on charges of Theft by Fraud and three counts of Forgery/Uttering.
