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Perhaps it’s too much temptation for some people to work for a company that accommodates the high-flying lifestyles of others. That appears to be the case for one California human resources administrator at a private airline company, whose fraud conviction was documented in the Contra Costa Times. (Human resources does not mean using other humans as resources to line your own pockets.)
According to the news account, the 45-year-old woman used her access to information about her coworkers to fraudulently secure more than $74,000 in government benefits and privately issued funds. The county prosecutors charged that over a 10-month period of time, the former airline HR manager falsely applied for unemployment insurance benefits on behalf of six company employees, got credit cards and a loan in other victims’ names, collected flexible spending benefits for healthcare and childcare without deducting the amounts from her pay, and forged a doctor’s signature to extend her own receipt of disability benefits. (Makes you wonder when she had time to do her actual job.)
In total, the California criminal racked up 26 felony counts of fraud and theft. She pleaded no contest to four of those counts, admitting to grand theft by an employee, false statements to obtain unemployment benefits, identity theft and presenting a claim with false information. (Can’t blame the weather or mechanical failure for this grounding.) For her crimes, she was sentenced to two years and eight months in a county jail and ordered to repay at least $74,200 in restitution to six of the 15 victims who came forward with evidence. The judge presiding over her case noted that she will have to pay more in restitution for nine additional victims, once they turn in their documentation.
Theft and abuse of personnel information is especially galling when committed by someone entrusted to safeguard employee records. (Is it too much to wish that the punishment is the equivalent of being wedged into a middle seat on a long flight with a crying baby on one side and someone with a bad cold on the other?) Let’s hope for fewer missed connections between right and wrong in future.
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