| Josey Embezzlement Case | | |
Jeanette Elizabeth Josey is involved in a million dollar embezzlement case. She is accused of embezzling the money from her employer James Gillikin. James Gillikin is the owner of Gillikin Marine Railways, Inc., Morgan Creek Seafood, James T Gillikin Inc, Traveler Captain Jimmy Inc and Captain James II Inc. Josey worked as the office manager for the group for seventeen years. Detectives in Carteret County said that this is the largest embezzlement case they have encountered. According to WITN.com news channel Josey embezzled the money from legitimate payee accounts of the corporation’s general accounts and then converted the money to her own use. She would conceal the movement of money by stamping corporate checks with a made up office stamp with one of the five corporation names so that it appeared the money was going to where it needed to. Deputies say that she then used the money to pay off loans, debts, obtain property, pay insurance, and pay for exotic trips and vacations. Josey had been embezzling the money over the seventeen years that she worked there. It was discovered when Gilliken tried to use a debit card Josey had gotten for him. When asked to enter his zip code it was rejected when he put in his zip code. Upon going to the bank to address the problem it was discovered that it was her zip code that belonged to the card. Josey is currently being charged with two counts of felony embezzlement. Josey was your typical white collar criminal. She was in her 50’s with no prior criminal record, and was considered a loyal long time employee. Since she was considered a valuable employee and had been with the company for so long it seemed unlikely that she would have been capable of such a crime. There are three in the opportunity triangle that happens when fraud occurs. The three elements are commit, conceal and convert. The first element is commit the fraud, Josey committed the most common type which is the misappropriation of assets. Josey did this by taking assets and pretending they were going to corporate accounts when she was funneling them to her own account. The next element was concealing the fraud. This is done to prevent detection of the stolen assets by keeping the accounting equation in balance. A couple of ways this can be done is by lapping of check kiting. In Josey case she falsified records by stamping checks with fake endorsements that made it appear to go to correct accounts but instead it was routed to her account. The last element of the opportunity triangle is converting the theft to personal gain. Josey did this by buying property, paying off personal debts and taking fancy exotic trips. While Josey has not said why she committed the fraud looking at the pressures that could cause someone to commit these types of crimes I think that it was financial and emotional pressures to cause her to commit the crime. The emotional that I think she was under was greed. Josey embezzled one million dollars to support her lifestyle. Being greedy I believed caused her to steal this much. The second pressure is financial she was living beyond her means by buying property and taking expensive trips that she couldn’t afford. She was also paying off her own debt. I think that her trips and purchasing of property should have been a red flag to her employer that something was not right. Though it does not indicate in the news articles how long it took to notice discrepancies in paperwork it is this that lead to her being fired and the theft being discovered. The owner then called in law enforcement to gather evidence of the crime and locate Josey in order to prosecute her. After several months of investigating and the break with the debit card they had enough information to prosecute her. After several months she was located and arrested. It is more common for companies to prosecute white collar criminals now than in the past. Most hesitate to prosecute because of the sophisticated means criminals use to conceal their activities. In recent years there has been more focus on prosecuting these crimes. In Gillikin case there were several steps that could have been taken to detect and minimalize the damages incurred over the past 17 years. The biggest issues were his lack of internal controls. Josey had access to all information and there was no segregation of duties between receiving payments, posting to accounts and depositing the money. There was also no checking of bank accounts statements by individuals other than Josey. Making changes in the segregation of duties would have made it harder to conceal the illegal activity. Gillikin should have also had the books independently audited each year to help prevent this type of crime. It just goes to show how important internal controls can be for companies of any size.

Reference:
Woman wanted, accused of embezzling $1 million http://www.enctoday.com/articles/million-98135-nbsj-county-arrest.html

Authorities locate woman accused of embezzling $1 million http://www.jdnews.com/news/-91973--.html

Legal Law Institute, White Collar Crime, An Overview http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/White-collar_crime

WITN.COM Million Dollar Embezzlement Suspect to Make Court Appearance http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/123375883.html