Woman, 53, Charged With Stealing $700K From Employer
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A St. Bonifacius woman charged with stealing more than a half a million dollars from her employer is expected to make her first court appearance next week.
Karen Jane Breyette, 53, has been charged with seven counts of theft by swindle over $35,000.
According to the criminal complaint, Breyette was hired by medical device company PenRad Technologies in January 2008 as a bookkeeper.
"If you have primarily just one person in charge of the money and the books forward and backward, they can get away with thievery for a long period of time," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said.
The complaint states that over the course of seven years Breyette stole money by using the company credit cards to pay for vacations, purchase clothes and other personal items.
She also used the company checkbook to write herself four $4,000 checks. And, in one instance, she wrote a $6,000 check to a company for silver bullion bars, which were later recovered at her house.
Records show Breyette also made transfers from the company's account to other bank accounts that she had access to. Two transfers, totaling $42,000, were sent to Gentle Green Cleaners, a company that she is a part owner of.
According to the complaint, the largest amounts were taken through the payroll system.
Breyette would record that she received the proper amount of salary for her paycheck, but would then transfer more than the recorded amount into her account. According to the complaint, from 2008 through 2012 she stole $185,830.71 by altering her paycheck.
However, in 2011 and 2012 there were periods where she would record her paycheck correctly but not transfer any money into her account.
The complaint states the company believes this was her attempt to repay the money stolen earlier. But the efforts fell more than $100,000 short.
During those years, she failed to pay herself $62,118.62.
According to Hennepin County, Breyette stole nearly $900,000 in her time with PenRad. However, some of the thefts cannot be charged due to a five-year statute of limitations. Her total thefts are $682,881.
Breyette is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Sept. 1. She was unavailable for comment.