Bookkeeper spent nearly three years embezzling from Fresno County farmer but avoids prison
A bookkeeper who was charged with embezzling $620,000 from a Fresno County almond farmer has agreed to pay the money back as part of a plea deal to avoid going to prison.
The bookkeeper, 42-year-old Jennifer Mary Macias of Selma, appeared in Fresno County Superior Court on Wednesday to accept the agreement between her and Senior Deputy District Attorney Victor Lai. Macias is represented by attorney Roger Wilson.
As part of the deal, Macias will return $470,000 to the Kingsburg farmer whose finances she once oversaw. She has already paid back $100,000, said attorney Jeffrey Hammerschmidt, who represents the farmer.
Also, she must serve 90 days in the adult offender work program, be on probation for three years and remain employed.
A charge of forgery will be dropped.
If she violates the terms of her probation, she could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
At her sentencing on May 10, a payment schedule will be finalized, Lai said.
Hammerschmidt said the amount of restitution is lower than the amount she was accused of stealing because the farmer reviewed the company’s finances and found the actual amount was closer to about half a million dollars.
What did she do with money? Investigators said she paid for trips, including to Las Vegas, and gambling.
Hammerschmidt, who has handled similar cases, said embezzlers typically use the money to gamble, buy drugs or live a lavish lifestyle.
“When we asked her about it, she said she spent some on herself and her mother,” he said.
Hammerschmidt suspects she has “squirreled it away” somewhere.
The investigation into Macias began in February 2021 after the farmer noticed that more money than usual was being drawn out of the farm’s account. At the time, Macias operated as a freelance bookkeeper whose company was called VB Services.
He asked his bankers to check into it and they found evidence going back to 2018 that Macias had altered hundreds of business checks and deposited the money into her personal bank account during the period from Jan. 1, 2018 to Sept. 14, 2020, according to Fresno County Sheriff’s detectives.
Hammerschmidt and the farmer sat down with Macias prior to her arrest to ask her about the missing funds that she later admitted taking.
“Her first reaction when we told her the total number was, ‘Wow, I didn’t think it was that much,’” Hammerschmidt said.
