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New Haven County resident Erin Sullivan of Cheshire, age 53, was sentenced on Wednesday, Feb. 21 to 24 months in prison for her embezzlement scheme and tax fraud, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut announced.
According to federal officials, Sullivan was employed as the office manager for the Orange-based construction business she worked for. Beginning at least as early as 2016, Sullivan would make fake entries into the company's payroll and accounting system to generate hundreds of fraudulent checks payable to her or to "Petty Cash."
Right after she would generate these checks, she would then change the reference in the payroll and accounting system to show that it had been issued to a different person.
Sullivan would even occasionally generate checks in the name of the company's owner, forge their signature on the checks, and cash them or deposit them in her bank account. Additionally, she altered the payroll and accounting system in other ways to cause her to receive more pay than she should have, officials said.
In total, Sullivan embezzled a total of $955,960.71 from the company. She also did not pay $233,738 in federal income taxes on this embezzled income for the 2016 through 2021 tax years.
She pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion on Oct. 30, 2023.
In addition to her sentence, Sullivan was ordered to pay more than $1.17 million in restitution. She has so far paid around $640,000, officials said.
Sullivan will also be required to serve three years of supervised release after her sentence. She will report to prison on Monday, April 8, and is released on a $100,000 bond until then.
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