Crime & Safety
Palo Alto Bookkeeper Convicted For $700+K Embezzlement
Now facing a possible five years in jail, the Los Gatos woman nearly bankrupted her landscaping employer with her "greed," prosecutor said.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA – A former office manager for a Palo Alto landscaping company has been convicted of embezzling more than $700,000 from her former employer, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
According to prosecutors, the employee, Guadalupe Ruzic, 51, of Los Gatos, used the money she stole -- $736,000 -- to purchase Gucci handbags, jewelry, a vacation timeshare and San Francisco 49ers season
tickets.
"The defendant's greed and criminality brought the family-owned business that had employed her to the edge of insolvency," prosecutor Peter Waite said in a statement.
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Ruzic kept books for the company starting in 2014. Her fraudulent activity was caught this February. She would use QuickBooks software and a check stamp to make checks to herself and make it appear they were being paid to contractors, who ended up being unpaid, prosecutors said.
Ruzic pleaded no contest in November to charges of felony embezzlement and forgery.
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Judge Vincent Chiarello was set to sentence her to five years in prison today in a sentencing hearing at the Palo Alto Courthouse, prosecutors said.
--Bay City News/Shutterstock image
