Woman sentenced to probation and community service after stealing $13,200 from workplace
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IDAHO FALLS – A 26-year-old woman was sentenced Monday after she stole $13,200 from her workplace.
Ashlynn Lee Richardson was sentenced to 10 days in county jail, five years of probation and 100 hours of community service by District Judge Dane Watkins Jr.
Richardson will be given credit for two days of time already served, and be required to pay $1,245 in court fees.
The state plans to argue for a $20,403.68 restitution fine, which will be decided at a future restitution hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.
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Watkins withheld judgement on the charge, meaning if Richardson successfully completes her probation without any violations, she will become eligible to ask the court to remove the charge from her record.
Richardson originally pleaded not guilty to one count of felony grand theft of check or order for payment, and one count of felony grand theft where the value of the property exceeds $1,000.
In June, Richardson accepted a plea agreement where she agreed to plead guilty to both charges if the state agreed to recommend a withheld judgement.
Background of the case
In February, the owner of a heating and air conditioning business told an officer with the Idaho Falls Police Department that his employee, Richardson, had fraudulently forged multiple business checks to herself.
Richardson’s position with the company was as an administrative assistant, where she had access to the business checks and had authority to write business checks to vendors but not to herself, documents said.
The owner explained to officers he is the only person authorized to sign checks for the business and required Richardson to keep receipts for any purchases and payments to suppliers.
She additionally had company credit cards available to her to pay vendors and purchase needed supplies.
According to the owner, Richardson had followed procedures and entered legitimate payments into their bookkeeping program and attached appropriate receipts for each purchase she made for the business with company funds, until the forged checks were discovered.
She did not mention or ask for authorization for the multiple checks she had written to herself between December 2022 and February 2023.
She forged his signature when she wrote the unauthorized checks to herself, the owner told police.
He told law enforcement he confronted Richardson when he discovered the forged checks.
Nine checks were provided for documentation to law enforcement, which amounted to $13,200.
When confronted, Richardson admitted to writing the checks to herself but claimed she had done this on one occasion so she could be paid early and on another occasion to reimburse herself for office supplies and building materials that she had purchased with her own money, documents say.
The owner said it was implausible that she had paid for the supplies herself because the forged checks were all even rounded dollar amounts in the hundreds or thousands.
Richardson was asked for the receipts to validate her claim of reimbursement but could not provide them, court documents said.
A detective interviewed her, and she admitted she wrote and cashed the checks in question but intended to repay the money when she could. She denied that she intentionally stole the money.
Richardson maintained she wrote the checks for reimbursement of business supplies, but said she could not provide a plausible explanation for why she would “secretly” pay out of her own pocket for business materials multiple times for months and require reimbursement but never mention it to her employer, court documents said.