A local woman has been charged with several counts of wire fraud after she allegedly embezzled nearly $200,000 from her Fox Point-based employer.
Raquel McCarthy, 55, is charged with two counts of fraud by wire, radio or television and three counts of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions.
The indictment does not name the company McCarthy worked for but does say the company is a small business-to-business video production and interactive multimedia services company.
McCarthy worked for the company from December 2020 until September 2022 as the business manager and bookkeeper. In this role, she was able to issue and deposit checks from the company’s checking account.
The indictment alleges McCarthy would issue checks payable to cash from the company’s checking account, later depositing those checks into her own personal checking accounts. She also created false invoices to make unauthorized checks appear to be legitimate payments to vendors, according to the indictment.
“As further part of the scheme, McCarthy made materially false and fraudulent entries in (the company’s) general ledger in which she represented these embezzled checks as legitimate business expenses,” reads the indictment.
McCarthy was able to embezzle approximately $198,314. Approximately $30,000 of the money embezzled has already been seized from one of McCarthy’s personal bank accounts. The state is seeking to recover the remaining money that was unlawfully obtained. McCarthy is set to make her initial plea on Friday.
