Former Centerville accountant guilty in $1M embezzlement

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — A former Dayton-area accountant has pleaded guilty to embezzling over $1 million from her former Montgomery County-area employers.

Deborah Yosick, 60, currently of Davenport, Fla., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to embezzling more than $1 million. She pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and income tax evasion.

Yosick embezzled money from her Centerville employer Donald C. Wright Investments, LLC and its sister company Don Wright Realty, LLC, according to a media release.

Don Wright’s businesses are family-owned and provide commercial, industrial, and residential services in Greater Dayton.

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From about 1985 to October 2015, Yosick was Don Wright’s accountant and was principally responsible for handling its accounts payables and accounts receivables. During that time she embezzled $1.09 million.

Her duties included making journal entries relating to receivables, crediting tenant accounts as rents were received and preparing deposit slips and making deposits on behalf of Don Wright, according to the media release.

The media release indicates that between 2010 and October 2015, Yosick “devised a scheme to defraud and embezzle money from Don Wright by using rental payments to pay her personal American Express bill, by initiating ACH transfers from a Don Wright bank account.”

A portion of the cash embezzled was used to purchase money orders from supermarkets, Walmart and post offices. She then used the money orders to pay her personal American Express credit card bills.

In a two-year period, Yosick caused approximately 70 electronic transfers (ACH payments) from a company bank account to American Express in order to pay her personal credit card bill.

Yosick also committed income tax evasion by filing a false income tax return for the 2014 income tax year by under-reporting her taxable income by over $300,000, according to the release.

Yosick evaded paying $255,571 in federal income taxes to the IRS for income years 2010 to 2014.

Yosick will pay restitution to Don Wright Realty LLC in the amount of $1,098,778.23 and to the Internal Revenue Service in the amount of $255,571.

Yosick has not been sentenced yet. Wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment, and income tax evasion is punishable by up to five years imprisonment.

“Tax evasion and embezzlement schemes of this magnitude and with this degree of trickery, dishonesty and deceit, deserves to be punished,” said Kathy A. Enstrom, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office. “The IRS, FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s Office remain determined and vigilant in ferreting out such schemes to cheat the honest taxpayers.”