Former Marin accountant sentenced for embezzlement

A previous accountant who worked for a Marin Headlands vacation resort has been sentenced to more than two a long time in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion.

Stephanie Simontacchi, 48, of Petaluma stole 81 checks when she labored for the Cavallo Point Lodge in the vicinity of Sausalito, federal authorities reported. She misappropriated $384,363.28 in between October 2012 and March 2016.

Later, when doing work as an accountant at Redwood Credit Union, she embezzled about three dozen checks valued at nearly $440,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Place of work in San Francisco. The credit union crimes transpired from April 2016 to April 2019.

“She deposited the checks into her particular lender and credit card accounts for personal use and utilised the resources to make payments towards a private property equity line of credit,” the U.S. Attorney’s Place of work reported in a sentencing announcement on Friday.

The prosecution also said Simontacchi ready phony income tax returns for the several years 2013 to 2019, shorting the govt additional than $100,000.

A federal grand jury indicted Simontacchi on 18 counts in June 2021. The expenses involved bank fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion.

Simontacchi pleaded responsible in February to a person rely of just about every criminal offense. She agreed to pay at least $821,525.52 in restitution, the prosecution said.

In a memorandum submitted just before the sentencing on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amani Floyd asked the choose for a 35-thirty day period jail phrase.

“The offenses committed by the defendant are significant,” Floyd wrote. “She stole about $800,000 from two of her former businesses and used her understanding and talent as an accountant to conceal her actions. She then underpaid her taxes for decades.”

Simontacchi’s community defender, Gabriela Bischof, argued for a single calendar year in custody and 3 decades of supervised probation. She stated Simontacchi has been struggling for several years with psychological well being and material abuse difficulties stemming from her upbringing in a “doomsday cult.”

“The trauma and adversity Ms. Simontacchi has faced in her lifestyle does not give her license to dedicate crimes, but it need to mitigate her sentence,” Bischof wrote. “Moreover, the remarkable acceptance of responsibility she has demonstrated, as nicely as the restoration she independently undertook, should really encourage the Courtroom that she is now unlikely to reoffend and a prolonged sentence is unnecessary.”

Simontacchi, in a letter to U.S. District Choose William Orrick, expressed remorse for the crimes.

“I regret my lots of terrible decisions and comprehend that they ended up major offenses that triggered my past employers lots of dropped several hours, pointless expenditures, and emotions of shock, harm, and betrayal,” she wrote. “My earlier employers confided in me to handle their funds I broke that believe in by embezzling from them and committing fraud.”

Orrick sentenced her to 29 months in jail and purchased her to surrender by Aug. 11.

Simontacchi could not be attained for remark on Monday.