Westland woman sentenced to prison for embezzling $600K to feed gambling addiction

Westland woman sentenced to prison for embezzling $600K to feed gambling addiction

July 16, 2012
By Tresa Baldas
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

An admitted gambling addict from Westland is going to prison for nearly three years for embezzling more than $600,000 from her employer – a small family business that nearly went bankrupt and laid off employees because of the woman’s crimes.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Lori Ann Caruso, 40, was sentenced to 33 months in prison, ordered to pay restitution to her employer and attend gambling therapy for using her payroll job with two door companies to embezzle money she later gambled away.

According to court records, Caruso embezzled from 2007 to 2011. She wired more than $380,000 from the company’s bank account into her own personal account, and used other employees’ credit cards to charge $270,000 for personal use, most of it involving cash advances at different casinos.

“Caruso enjoyed a good relationship with the owners of this family run business. ... She was trusted by the owners and managers of the companies to handle their money. She totally abused this trust,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Abed Hammoud argued in court documents, noting Caruso’s actions wreaked havoc on the company, which had to lay off several of its 45 employees. “(Caruso’s) actions drove the small companies to the brink of going out of business. … She caused the businesses’ credit worthiness to worsen, causing higher interest rates on money borrowed. She also created high tensions in the company resulting in the partners fighting and loss of trust among employees and management.”

According to court documents, from 1996 to 2011, Caruso was employed with International Door Company and American Industrial Door – two small businesses in Canton that were owned and operated by the same individuals. Her duties included managing the company’s payroll and overseeing company credit card accounts, which gave her access to the company’s bank accounts.

In court documents, and at her sentencing hearing, Caruso blamed her crimes on a gambling addiction that she said got out of control. While she had been gambling for more than a decade, records show, in early 2010 her gambling addiction “started to take hold of her.” And while she took money from her employer, her lawyer argued, she never planned or schemed to do so.

“Ms. Caruso admits that she took money from the victims. Every dollar that was taken is now in the possession of a casino,” her lawyer Marc McDonald wrote in court documents. “Ms. Caruso is a living example of how a gambling addiction can be as serious as an addiction as drugs. Ms. Caruso would lose up to $10,000 in one night and in her words, ‘lost control.’ … Her addiction simply got out of control, and she has nothing to show for it.“

http://www.freep.com/article/20120716/NEWS02/120716071/westland-gambling-addict-sentenced-prison-door-business