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Violeta McGough, 55, stepped down from her position as treasurer of the Philippine Independence Day Council, Inc. at the end of February this year amid the federal probe. She cited health reasons.
Over seven years, beginning in 2008, McGough "made numerous fraudulent accounting entries to steal funds that her employer...collected as insurance premiums" underwritten by a United Kingdom insurance syndicate, Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick said.
McGough, who is charged with wire fraud, cooked to books "to divert a portion of those payments to her personal use," disguising the stolen funds as reimbursed premiums for cancelled policies, he said.
Fitzpatrick said she had help -- dropping the money into a bank account belonging to an unidentified individual who purportedly worked for a premium financing company. The money was then routed back to her account, he said.
Fitzpatrick credited postal inspectors with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and criminal investigators from his office with making the case, which is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney David W. Feder of Fitzpatrick's Criminal Division in Newark.
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