Woman Pleads Guilty To Stealing More Than $700K In Stamford Fraud Scheme

STAMFORD, Conn. -- A Yonkers woman pleaded guilty in court Friday to one count of wire fraud stemming from her theft of more than $700,000 from her Stamford employer, according to Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

U.S. Attorney for Connecticut Deirdre Daly announced that a New York woman pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with her former Stamford employer.
Photo Credit: *File*

Donna Christopher

01/20/2017 5:00 p.m.

Rosemarie Collazo, 51, waived her right to indictment and made her plea in Bridgeport before U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill.

According to court documents, Collazo was working for Abbey National Treasury Services PLC and as part of her job assisted in arranging for payments to vendors and others.

Among her duties she collected invoices as they came into the company and presented the collected invoices to her supervisor to approve payment. After they were signed off, she entered the payment information in the company's accounts payable system and collected information that included invoices, authorization forms and payment checks. She was also in charge of mailing checks to vendors, Daly said.

Between 2010 and 2016, Collazo prepared 144 fraudulent duplicate invoice packages and submitted an equivalent number of checks for authorizing signatures for payments that she knew had already been processed and paid, said Daly.

In addition, on at least three other occasions, Collazo misappropriated a vendor refund check that had been sent to the company, and endorsed the check for deposit into her personal bank account, according to Daly.

The total amount Collazo stole in the scheme is $772,242, said Daly.

Her sentencing is set for April 14. She faces a maximum prison term of 20 years.

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