Atlanta woman embezzles thousands, sentenced to federal prison
An Atlanta woman was sentenced Wednesday to serve five years and one month in federal prison on charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Cynthia Whitehead, 44, embezzled over a quarter of a million dollars from Randstad, North America, an international staffing firm in Sandy Springs, said Sally Quillian Yates, acting U.S. attorney.
Whitehead was accused of embezzling more than $300,000 over a three-year period.
From 2004 to 2007, Whitehead worked as a branch manager for Randstad. She reactivated the employment statuses of more than a dozen former employees in the company’s data system, made entries which falsely showed that these former employees were currently working for Randstad clients, arranged for the payment of their wages, and accessed the company’s payroll accounts to collect those wages for herself.
“This employee had unique access to company funds as well as the trust of the company to appropriately use those funds for legitimate business purposes,” said Yates.
Whitehead will be required to serve five years of supervision after being released from prison and ordered to pay $286,388.37 in restitution.
