former hotel employee sentenced for $170,000 fraud scheme
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former employee of Springfield University Plaza Hotel and Convention Center was sentenced in federal court today for stealing nearly $170,000 from the hotel.
Janet R. Mosier, 47, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to 21 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Mosier to pay $169,864 in restitution.
Mosier, the former director of accounting services at University Plaza, pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Feb. 22, 2012. Mosier admitted that she engaged in a scheme to defraud her employer from January 2003 to October 2010. Mosier stole funds from the University Plaza petty cash account by falsely reporting inflated amounts of petty cash spent, and diverting the excess to her own bank account. In this manner, Mosier admitted that she stole $169,864 from her employer.
Over the years, Mosier submitted receipts from her personal expenses, and receipts obtained from family members, to support the fraudulently inflated reports of petty cash outlays. Many receipts, which Mosier altered by removing transaction dates, were used multiple times. Mosier submitted one such receipt, actually for her sister’s dental expenses, 30 times over the course of three and a half years.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Mohlhenrich. It was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Springfield, Mo., Police Department.
