Tewksbury Woman Embezzled More Than $1.8 Million From Employer: Feds

TEWKSBURY, MA — A Tewksbury woman has been sentenced to 5 years and 2 months in prison for embezzling $1.8 million from her employers, collecting unemployment assistance while employed fulltime, and related tax charges according to federal prosecutors.

Joanne Dinoto, aka Joanne Mara, 49, will also serve three years of supervised release. Dinoto was ordered to pay $2,195,592 in restitution.

Dinoto stole more than $1.8 million from her employer, a flooring company based in Acton, from 2008 to 2020, prosecutors said. She did so by falsely inflating her compensation, using her employer’s corporate credit card for personal expenses, and forging at least two checks to herself drawn on her employer’s checking account.

Dinoto modified her employer’s accounting records to hide her scheme. She later collected unemployment benefits from the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance under her true Social Security number, even though she was then working full time for a lighting company based in Wilmington under a fake Social Security number, according to prosecutors.

Between 2015 and 2020, Dinoto did not report more than $1 million that she embezzled from the Acton company or received from the Wilmington company on her federal income tax returns.

In March, Dinoto pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and one count of filing a false tax return, according to prosecutors.