Middletown woman pleads guilty to embezzling $535,000
HARRISBURG, PA. — A Middletown woman pled guilty to embezzling over a half-million dollars in stolen insurance funds. Diane M. Fabian, 66, was an employee of Wolf Strite Insurance Agency, and later Don Jacobs Insurance Services, Inc. Starting in at least 2008, she began forging customer names on company checks and would deposit the funds to her own account. To get the checks, she would inform the company that a client had been overbilled or that a refund was due – when in fact it was not. In other instances, insurance companies such as Liberty Mutual would issue a refund check, but Fabian would forge the customer’s name, deposit the check and keep the money.
Fabian pleaded guilty Thursday to 76 charges of forgery, theft by deception, and theft by failure to make required disposition, scheming at least $535,000 in stolen insurance funds.
Fabian admitted the scheme to detectives. She said that she was addicted to gambling, and spent much of the money at Hollywood Casino. She has since self-excluded herself from the casino. Most of the charges are third-degree felonies, each of which carries a 7-year statutory maximum. Fabian is set to be sentenced by the Hon. John F. Cherry on January 5, 2017. Lower Paxton Detective James Glucksman worked on this case, as did the Insurance Department of Pennsylvania, and prosecutors David Wilson and A.J. Jarbola.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania’s helpline (800) 848-1880 or the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs’ Gambling Addiction Hotline (877) 565-2112. For more information regarding compulsive and problem gambling, please visit http://gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov/?p=66
SOURCE: Dauphin County District Attorney
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