California Bookkeeper Sentenced for Fraud

On March 1, 2013, in Sacramento, California, Kathe Rascher, of Citrus Heights, California, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution. Rascher was convicted on one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion. According to court documents, Rascher, a bookkeeper, embezzled more than $1.7 million from her employer. Rascher wrote checks to herself and her family members from the company’s bank account. In order to make it look like the checks were issued for legitimate expenses, she changed the name of the payees on the unauthorized checks in the accounting records, altered carbon copies of the checks, and created fictitious invoices. She also reviewed the monthly bank statements and cancelled checks sent to company and deliberately removed and destroyed any returned unauthorized checks that had been issued to her and her family. Rascher further failed to disclose the embezzled income in May 2006 when she filed her federal tax returns for tax years 2004 and 2005.

Source: IRS.gov