Bookkeeper Stole $389,000 from Store, Pleads Guilty

Susan Durrance, 55, of Farmington, has pleaded to mail fraud and filing false tax returns, according to a press statement from Acting United States Attorney Donald Feith.

While working as a bookkeeper for an appliance store in Wolfeboro and (later) Ossippe, from 2005 to June 2011, Durrance stole more than $389,000 from the store by issuing checks from the store’s operating accounts to make payments on her personal credit accounts.

In May 2002, Durrance paid for a tractor she bought for her personal use by causing a $2,999 check from the store’s operating account to be mailed to the tractor’s manufacturer. The embezzlement scheme also involved conduct by which Durrance issued checks from the store’s operating accounts to “cash” or to herself in amounts that were inconsistent with her salary, which she cashed or deposited to her own bank accounts. Durrance also failed to report the amount of money she stole from the store on her federal income tax returns for tax years 2005 through 2010.

If this information was accurately reported on Durrance’s tax returns, she would have been required to pay additional tax totaling more than $92,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Durrance will be sentenced by Chief United States District Court Judge Joseph N. Laplante on March 16, 2016.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division; the United States Postal Inspection Service; and Carroll County New Hampshire Sheriff’s Office.