Deschutes County sees rise in large embezzlement cases

Deschutes County businesses have been hit with three large embezzlement cases in just over a year. In each one, an employee is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

William Walton was accused of stealing more than $700,000 from a Bend construction company in August 2015. Cheryl Ann Waldron admitted to taking a Sister’s construction company for several hundred thousand dollars in March. And just last month, Sherrie Lynn Burge was accused of embezzling almost $1 million from a Bend business.

“There has been an uptick in these major cases,” District Attorney John Hummel said Monday. “There’s always smaller, $500 or $1,000 cases. We’re not seeing an uptick in that, but we’re definitely seeing an uptick in the massive $100,000, $1 million embezzlement cases.”

In all three cases, the accused employee had worked for the company for several years.

“Only 8 percent of frauds happen in employees that are less than one year in tenure,” said Melissa Goddard, a certified fraud examiner, but “49.4 percent actually are employees that are five years or more in tenure.”

Goddard said there’s a reason length of employment and fraud correlate.

“Because they are long-term employees like that, they’re personal friends with the owner, and they’re sure that the owner won’t turn them in.”

Goddard also said theft can almost always be avoided, and there are many red flags. She said to watch for employees who don’t like to take vacations or share their workload with others, ones that are resistant to cross-training, and ones that are living outside their means.

Goddard also said it’s a good idea for companies to get fraud assessments every year.