Green Lane woman admits embezzling
She stole $688,000 from Hatfield employer
A Green Lane woman admitted to stealing nearly $700,000 from a Hatfield company where she worked as a bookkeeper and has placed her fate in the hands of a judge.
Carol Ann Snyder, 59, of the 600 block of Macoby Street, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court on Friday to a felony charge of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received, admitting to embezzling $688,000 from her employer, Hardy Machine LLC, between 2012 and 2019.
The open plea means Snyder has no deal with prosecutors regarding her punishment.
Judge Thomas C. Branca will have sole responsibility to fashion Snyder’s punishment when she’s formally sentenced on Nov. 19.
Snyder faces a possible maximum sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison on the charge. However, state sentencing guidelines could allow for a lesser sentence. Those guidelines recommend a minimum sentence of anywhere between nine and 16 months, according to testimony.
Snyder has been in the county jail awaiting trial since last October and would receive credit for that time spent behind bars. Snyder, wearing a face covering, appeared at Friday’s hearing from the county jail via a videoconferencing system that was linked to the courtroom in order to abide by social distancing recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“She admitted and accepted responsibility that while in a position of trust with her employer, over a period of years, that she embezzled over $600,000,” said county Assistant District Attorney Christopher Daniels, adding Snyder breached the trust of her employer.
“She was in a position of trust, managing accounts and credit cards and over a period of time completely covered up what
she was doing,” Daniels added. “Everyone trusted her and knew her as a valued, trusted and good employee and they were certainly shocked when they did an investigation and found out how deep and long this scheme was.”
Daniels was assisted on the case by co-prosecutor Vanessa Konoval.
Defense lawyer Paul J. Mallis said Snyder is remorseful and plans to make restitution.
“From day one, Carol has been sincerely remorseful. She’s been compliant, waived her right to a preliminary hearing and she didn’t make the Hardys testify at a preliminary hearing,” Mallis said on Snyder’s behalf after the hearing. “She’s just sincerely remorseful and we look forward to sentencing to make good on restitution and to move past this.”
Prosecutors alleged Snyder used the stolen money to make purchases at retail stores, grocery stores, online businesses and an auto repair shop. Authorities alleged that other purchases made to vendors including a country club, disc jockey and tuxedo and bridal stores coincided with Snyder’s two daughters’ weddings, according to the criminal complaint.
An investigation of Snyder began in September 2019 when the owner of Hardy Machine reported the thefts to Hatfield detectives.
Company officials said they were alerted to the thefts when the issuer of a company credit card notified the company that its payment was overdue, a credit card that company owners believed had been inactive for several years, according to the arrest affidavit.
Further investigation regarding the credit card account and other business records uncovered additional unauthorized and non-business related purchases by Snyder, who was the office administrator, prosecutors alleged.
Snyder was solely responsible for payroll, accounts receivable, the balancing of books and the management of the company’s finances, detectives alleged.
The investigation uncovered a total of 1,758 unauthorized purchases made by Snyder between 2012 and Aug. 9, 2019, according to the arrest affidavit filed by Hatfield Detective Daniel J. Tinneny.
In addition to making unauthorized credit card purchases, Snyder wrote unauthorized checks to herself and other entities, forging the business owner’s signature. Snyder fraudulently documented the checks in business records as having been written to various companies that did business with Hardy Machine, authorities alleged.
After discovering the embezzlement, company owners confronted Snyder. During a meeting, Snyder stated, “she shouldn’t have done it,” according to the criminal complaint.
“Finally, Carol Snyder reportedly offered to (company owners) her 401K saying, ‘you can have my whole 401K, I don’t want to go to jail,’” Tinneny alleged in the arrest affidavit.
When confronted by detectives about the thefts Snyder stated, “I used the credit card and I wrote some checks” and that she used the credit cards “for food for my kids and I don’t know when it started,” according to arrest documents.
Snyder told detectives no one assisted her in the alleged embezzlement.