Bookkeeper stole $1M from SC business: feds

Karen Rhett was the bookkeeper at a South Carolina actual estate company for the superior portion of 25 many years, in accordance to federal court docket files.

She was also embezzling from it, prosecutors reported.

A federal choose sentenced the 59-calendar year-old to three a long time in jail on Monday, April 4, after she pleaded responsible to felony costs very last year. She was also ordered to invest a few decades on supervised launch and pay back restitution.

Rhett’s defense legal professional did not instantly respond to McClatchy News’ request for remark on April 6. But he explained in court docket filings that she took total obligation for the theft immediately after the FBI showed up at her property in Mount Pleasant, just exterior of Charleston, in 2020.

“Painfully, and with deep sorrow, she admits that she took gain of her position of belief as a bookkeeper,” stated George Rutledge DuRant, who represented Rhett. “She admits that her theft was enduring and commenced extensive ago with a rather tiny amount of money of money. It escalated with time. The much more she stole, the more durable it became to prevent.”

According to court documents, Rhett labored for Simmons Realty Enterprise, a true estate agency operate by David and Elizabeth Simmons.

“It took three very long many years of monotonous investigative do the job by the loved ones and a forensic accountant (former IRS Unique Agent) to uncover this advanced and advanced fraudulent scheme,” Bart Daniel, who represented the Simmons, instructed McClatchy News in a statement. “The Simmons Family is relieved that justice has eventually been served.”

Prosecutors reported Rhett oversaw the company’s accounting and organization information and was “in a situation of trust” when she allegedly began siphoning off income.

She is accused of transferring dollars to herself, frequently transferring the cash between other company entities before it finally landed in her account. Rhett also built up organization invoices for bogus fees and wrote checks to herself before recording the payments as genuine, the authorities said.

The Simmons at some point fired her, and FBI agents frequented Rhett at property in July 2020, court docket documents state.

According to her attorney, Rhett confessed to the embezzlement the adhering to thirty day period and commenced cooperating with federal investigators.

“It should be comprehended that Karen created the selection to confess solely on her have and speedily, inside 1 week of the F.B.I. knocking on the door of her property,” her legal professional stated.

Rhett bought the 4,000-sq.-foot dwelling she shared with her spouse and daughter for $982,000 in December 2020, according to authentic estate listings. Her attorney explained she wrote a examine for restitution totaling $640,633 and submitted it to the court docket in January 2021.

Rhett was charged by criminal data and pleaded guilty to expenses of wire fraud and earning wrong statements, courtroom paperwork exhibit. Her legal professional reported she was fired from her new career at a holistic nutrition retailer when information of the guilty plea broke in April 2021.

Rhett subsequently started a enterprise, Cupcake Bouquets by Karen, by which she bakes and sells “delicious and artistic, mostly floral in structure, cupcakes,” her attorney mentioned.

From August 2021 to February 2022, he reported, she has offered $3,648 worthy of of cupcakes.

“Karen is certain that Cupcake Bouquets by Karen, LLC would afford her the suggests by which she can make meaningful payments towards entire restitution,” her legal professional claimed in sentencing paperwork. “In terms of getting on new orders and building this business enterprise as it stands now, Karen has been cautious not to consider on as well a lot of new orders or to develop too promptly as her imminent upcoming is, at very best, uncertain.”

Rhett’s law firm had questioned the judge to sentence her to a interval of dwelling confinement, pointing in component to her struggles with melancholy considering the fact that the costs came to light and a modern prognosis of Fibromyalgia.

He also said it is significant for Rhett to be dwelling with her 21-yr-previous daughter, who has reportedly struggled with her very own psychological wellness after a brief-lived vocation as a singer-songwriter. In accordance to sentencing files, her daughter previously sang at “various east coastline university gymnasiums and general performance halls with a information from bullying” as a teenager.

Rhett submitted six letters of aid penned by her therapist and many family members users also contacting for leniency.

“Karen has suffered the outcomes of a self-imposed sentence, shame and guilt prior to her pals and relatives and the whole group,” her law firm explained. “She has endured the reduction of nearly her every single possession and she has suffered the steady agony of dark depression. She has been punished seriously now.”

At sentencing, the decide advisable Rhett serve her prison sentence at FPC Alderson in West Virginia so that she can get health care cure. As soon as she is released, the judge barred her from getting any contact with the victims.

The total of restitution she owes is shown as “TBD” in the court docket.

This tale was at first revealed April 6, 2022 6:33 PM.