Ronkonkoma woman admits guilt in $17.8M payroll fraud

A Ronkonkoma woman has pleaded guilty in a $17.8-million wire fraud scheme, admitting she diverted federal tax money from Sacramento, Calif., county government employee paychecks, prosecutors said.

Kerry Ann Seaman, 35, former comptroller for the payroll processing company Ingentra HR Services Inc., of Hauppauge, faces sentencing March 25 in U.S. District Court, San Jose, Calif.

She agreed to pay restitution of $17,873,834 and to cooperate fully with government investigators. Seaman signed the plea agreement Nov. 18. She could not be reached for comment.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors will recommend that she be given a lighter sentence. She faces a maximum 25-year term.

Seaman admitted that she and Ingentra's president, Albert Cipoletti, 61, of Northport, carried out the fraud together, siphoning cash from paychecks at two private companies as well as from firefighters and other Sacramento County workers - 3,000 employees altogether, from 2005 to 2010.

Together they collected about $70 million that was supposed to go to the Internal Revenue Service, but they retained $17.8 million and sent the balance to the IRS, according to prosecutors, who say the two diverted the money into Ingentra's bank account to prop up the failing company.

The mail fraud conviction stems from Seaman's admission that she and Cipoletti used interstate wires when e-mailing IRS tax forms to clients.