She spent more than $600,000 on designer items at Saks Fifth Avenue, funded $460,000 in trips for family and friends, and used another $238,000 to buy tickets to University of Tennessee sporting events, the Masters and the Kentucky Derby, according to investigators.
But none of it was her money. Sonya Hesenius, a former office manager and executive assistant for a company in Alpharetta, was sentenced to six years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said this week.
Hesenius, 60, must also pay restitution in the amount of $8,614,729.37 that she embezzled between 2015 and 2020, U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said. She pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud in November.
“Hesenius will now be held accountable for her flagrant theft of millions of dollars from her employer to support a lavish lifestyle,” Buchanan said in a news release. “Hesenius was entrusted with handling the financial responsibilities for the company where she worked. But she chose to steal from the company, blatantly using company funds to pay for expensive, overseas vacations for herself and family members, plastic surgery, shopping binges at exclusive retail stores, and other exorbitant purchases.”
Federal prosecutors said Hesenius made fraudulent charges on corporate credit cards and had the unnamed yard company reimburse her credit card for personal expenses. She approved all of the charges and hid the fraud by claiming they were legitimate expenses, such as newspaper advertisements, prosecutors said.
“Hesenius worked in a position of trust for a company that expected her to honor that trust,” Keri Farley, FBI Atlanta special agent, said in the release. “Instead, she chose to abuse it, and her personal greed not only hurt the company, but everyone who worked for them. This sentence should send the message that the FBI takes wire fraud extremely seriously and will work to hold offenders accountable.”
Among other purchases, Hesenius used the money she stole to pay $172,000 for her daughter’s wedding, $40,000 for a down payment on a $100,000 recreational vehicle, and hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-end furniture and plastic surgery, according to investigators.
