Prison Term To Be Handed Down in $2.8 Million San Mateo Embezzlement Case

REDWOOD CITY, CA — The former manager of a San Mateo condominium complex accused of embezzling $2.8 million from her job from 2007 to 2013 pleaded no contest to embezzlement and forgery charges on Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Susan Marie Lambert, 65, entered the plea in the courtroom of Judge Elizabeth Lee in Redwood City on Tuesday afternoon on the condition that she receive a maximum sentence of three years and four months in prison, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Lambert was the general manager of the Woodlake Homeowners Association overseeing the Woodlake Condominiums complex until she was fired in September 2013.

Woodlake is an affluent 990-unit condo complex on Peninsula Avenue that surrounds a lake and has numerous amenities including five swimming pools, an 18-hole putting green, four tennis courts, two saunas, a gym and a billiard room.

After Lambert was fired, a stack of 150 false invoices to Professional Painting Inc. generated over the previous six years was discovered next to her computer.

Lambert had been generating the invoices and she and the painting company's owner, Michael Medeiros, were allegedly splitting the checks down the middle, with Medeiros depositing half the funds from the checks into an account controlled by Lambert.

It took about two years for prosecutors to bring charges against them, but Lambert was finally charged in September 2015 and remanded into custody on $1 million bail. She has been in custody since then.

Her sentencing will have to wait until after Medeiros's case is resolved, according to prosecutors. The court will receive a sentencing report for her on Oct. 28, but Medeiros isn't set to go to trial until Feb. 21.

Medeiros is out of custody on a $1 million bail bond.

— By Bay City News Service / Image via Shutterstock.