Sonoma Senior Center Worker Sentenced For Embezzling $250K

SANTA ROSA, CA -- Frances Farias was sentenced Tuesday in Sonoma County Superior Court to fours years in prison for stealing more than $100,000 from the Oakmont Management Group LLC where she worked as a payroll clerk, the Sonoma County District Attorney's office said.

Farias, 60, pleaded guilty to grand theft and will serve her sentence in state prison, the District Attorney's Office said. She was previously convicted of embezzlement in San Francisco and Santa Clara
counties in 2010 and was sentenced to four and five years respectively, prosecutors said.

Farias was hired in January 2014 in the human services department of the Oakmont Management Group and used her position of trust to embezzle more than $250,000, the District Attorney's Office said.

Farias created fake employee profiles in the payroll system and used legitimate employees' names to set up direct deposit accounts of alleged salaries into pre-paid debit card accounts in her name.

"This is yet another example of why companies need to impose internal audits and other controls to ensure that this type of theft cannot go unnoticed," District Attorney Jill Ravitch said.

The grand theft and identity theft investigation began Jan. 13, 2017 when the company's management called the sheriff's office to report Farias, the former payroll clerk, funneled funds to secondary fictitious
employees, Crum said.

Farias left the company in May, 2016. The new payroll clerk noticed the accounting irregularities which triggered the investigation, Crum said.

Farias worked at the company's Oakmont Senior Living facility in Windsor, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said.

--City News Service/Photo via Shutterstock