Bookkeeper bankrolled her side business with $650,000 she stole from bosses, feds say

A former bookkeeper is going to prison after bankrolling her side business selling clothes and buying fine jewelry with more than $650,000 she stole from her bosses in Georgia, federal prosecutors say.

For five years, the scheme caused the two bosses who owned several real estate businesses to believe the companies were raking in less money than they actually were, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia.

Suzanne Brooks, 41, of Bogart, was sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison and must pay $610,857 in restitution after she previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud, an Aug. 19 news release from the office says.

As part of her guilty plea, Brooks is also giving up a 14 karat white gold ring — which included 24 French cut sapphires, eight diamonds and a round yellow diamond — that she bought after stealing from her employers, court documents show.

An attorney for Brooks, Edward Tolley, told McClatchy News in a statement that his client “accepted responsibility for her actions, cooperated with the Government, and agreed to forfeiture and a money judgment against her.”

Between 2013 to 2018, Brooks worked as a work-from-home bookkeeper for a total of five real-estate businesses owned by her two bosses and had access to their money, including banking information, paper checks, and account numbers, according to court documents.

With this access, she used it to help herself financially while her employers were unaware, prosecutors say.

Brooks began paying off her and her husband’s personal credit card debt with Discover, Capital One, American Express, and USAA using money from her bosses’ accounts, according to the attorney’s office.

The credit card charges included Brooks’ first-class travel expenses, restaurant meals, jewelry, online shopping and retail purchases, home utilities, and insurance payments, prosecutors say.

What’s more is that she spent some of the stolen money on inventory to support her own side business selling clothes with a multi-level marketing company, the release says.

Brooks was able to hide her scheme for years by altering and faking entries in Quickbooks, a system the businesses used to keep track of the money,, according to court documents.

Alongside paying off her credit card, Brooks also used her bosses’ paper checks to write numerous checks to herself and withdrew even more money from bank accounts that were never hers, according to the release.

Ultimately, in 2018, Brooks was approached by one of her bosses about unauthorized electronic bank payments being made to Brooks’ personal credit cards, court documents show.

In another act of deception, Brooks’ explanation to her boss was that she had been a victim of identity theft, according to court documents.

She stole a total of $659,106.38 during the scheme, the release says. Even after the bank reversed some of the fraudulent payments, her first boss lost $565,000 while her second boss lost more than $45,297, court documents state.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office will pursue cases against all those who use fraud and deception for their own profit, costing small businesses and citizens dearly,” U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said in a statement.

Bogart is roughly 60 miles east of Atlanta.

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