WEST CHESTER — A woman who stole almost $100,000 from her employer should be sent to state prison for her crimes, a prosecutor with the Chester County District Attorney’s Office told a judge in a memo ahead of her scheduled sentencing.
The memo noted that, among other factors, it was not the first time Amber Lynn Goodman embezzled money from a company she worked for, according to court documents.
In March, Goodman, 33, of Chester Springs, pleaded guilty to charges of forgery and theft by deception. As part of her open plea, she acknowledged that she had taken $98,316 from her employer, Sulpizio Inc., over a period of several months while she was employed as the company bookkeeper.
Sulpizio, a West Goshen plumbing and HVAC contracting firm, used a vendor called Goodman Manufacturing as part of its business. According to West Goshen Police Officer Andrew Manko, who investigated the case, Goodman took checks that had been prepared for the manufacturing company and altered them to read “Goodman, Amber” in the payment line.
Between May 2021 and June 2022, she submitted 37 rewritten checks to her personal bank account, using the funds for her own personal expenses. The forgery was discovered and Goodman was arrested in August 2022.
But prior to committing those crimes, Goodman had been arrested and charged for stealing more than $120,790 from her then-employer in Berks County.
According to an arrest affidavit in that case, from March 2018 until October 2018, Goodman user the PayPal account of Strunk Media, a Kutztown-based web developer and digital design firm, to transfer the money to herself. Fleetwood police determined that she used the money to, again, pay for personal expenses.
When confronted with the thefts, Goodman confessed, according to the affidavit.
In October 2019, she was sentenced to nine to 23 months in Berks County Prison, but was allowed to serve the minimum prison term on electronic home monitoring. She also received three years probation.
Chester County Deputy District Attorney William Judge Jr., who has long experience prosecuting financial crimes, asked Common Pleas Judge Alita Rovito, who is presiding over Goodman’s case, to take that prior offense into account when sentencing her. He requested that she be given a sentence of 15 months to five years in state prison for the thefts, and be ordered to repay Sulpizio the $98,316 she stole.
“The perpetrator of this crime was a trusted employee of the victim, Sulpizio Inc.,” Judge wrote in a sentencing memo for Rovito’s consideration. “While many business owners want to trust staff and believe their employees would never steal, this case is an example of exactly why this is not true.”
Judge added that the loss of assets to the firm is not the only way that such thefts affect the life of a company. “There are many different ways I which a company can be impacted by employee theft, and the consequences of employee theft are financial, operational, and psychological.”
Goodman was scheduled to appear before Rovito for sentencing on Friday, but the proceeding was continued at the request o her attorney, Paul Mallis of Bensalem, who could not be reached for comment.
No date for the new sentencing has been set.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
Source: Berkshire mont
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