Woman held in fraud at senior community

A Sebastopol woman was arrested on suspicion of stealing a quarter of a million dollars from a Sonoma County senior living community after a new accountant was brought on board and noticed the numbers didn’t add up, officials said Wednesday.

The suspect, 59-yearold Frances Farias, was found to have created 10 fake employee payroll accounts and used them to funnel money away from the Oakmont Senior Living community in Windsor while she worked there as a payroll clerk, said Sgt. Spencer Crum, a spokesman for the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office.

Over her three-year tenure at the facility, Oakmont Senior Living paid the fake accounts about $256,000, Crum said. He said some of the accounts were set up in the names of former contractors at the company and others in the name of people fabricated by Farias.

Farias left the nursing home in May 2016, and a payroll clerk hired to replace her noticed irregularities in the accounting that pointed to Farias’ alleged fraud, which the Sheriff ’s Office began investigating in January, according to Crum.

Farias was arrested July 25, Crum said.

Farias, who is under investigation for several other schemes that may lead to more criminal charges, is being held in the Sonoma County Jail on four felony counts of identity theft and one felony count of grand theft, according to county records.

A judge reduced her bail to $100,000 after a hearing Tuesday, according to Crum.