New Canaan Police last week arrested a 60-year-old Hillsdale, N.J. woman by warrant and charged her with first-degree larceny and second- and third-degree forgery.
Employed as the financial officer at a New Canaan-based nonprofit organization that is seeking to end Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the woman hadn’t filed tax returns for the agency since 2019 and hadn’t filed payroll taxes since 2020, according to an arrest warrant application signed by a state Superior Court judge.
The woman admitted to the failures and admitted to the organization’s CEO that she “had diverted IRS and Connecticut State correspondence by changing the business address to [her own] home address,” according to an application filed by New Canaan Police Sgt. Peter Condos.
The financial officer also forged the CEO’s signature on a state registration form, allowing for “online filing of company financial disclosures in another possible attempt to hide irregularities,” the application said.
Flagged by the nonprofit when it lost its 501(c)3 status last year, the matter was brought to the attention of police July 9 by representatives from the organization. They found that problems began arising in December 2020, when “the first irregularity was discovered.” That month, the woman was paid a second electronic check in the amount of her monthly salary ($5,150), a practice that continued. She also funneled money through Zelle, and gave herself an additional $4,000 per month in August 2023 and January and March 2024 by diverting payments from a federal grant, the arrest warrant application said.
In all, she defrauded the organization of $85,873.32, the application said. Under state law, a person is guilty of first-degree larceny if he or she commits larceny and “the value of the property or service exceeds twenty thousand dollars.”
The woman also lied to auditors seeking to get to the bottom of the payroll tax liability and lied to the head of the organization about repayment of 2021 taxes.
During a recorded phone call shared with police, the woman began crying when confronted with the discrepancies in her work, saying that “nothing was done ‘maliciously’ and that the situation ‘mushroomed’ out of her control,” the arrest warrant said.
She eventually admitted the wrongdoing to police, saying, “Yes, I took the money.”
According to Connecticut Judicial Branch records, the woman has not yet pleaded and is scheduled for arraignment Oct. 23.