Bookkeeper charged with embezzling $200,000 from employer, clients

A bookkeeper for a property management company stole more than $200,000 from her employer and from clients to pay for her living and child-care expenses, the Nassau district attorney's office said Monday.

Laura Fontana, 62, of Glen Head, wrote checks to herself from the nine companies managed by a Glen Cove-based business and hid the theft by recording them in company books as payments to a vendor, authorities said. Between 2012 and 2018, she embezzled more than $190,000 from her employer and deposited the funds in her bank account, prosecutors said.

She also stole about $19,000 from two other clients, authorities said.

During the investigation, which began in July after prosecutors received a complaint, authorities determined that the individual check amounts ranged from $200 to $1,996, officials said.

Fontana was arraigned Friday on charges of second-degree grand larceny, two counts of third-degree grand larceny, five of second-degree criminal possessino of a forged instrument, and 10 of first-degree falsifying business records. All the charges are felonies.

Fontana was released on her own recognizance. Her attorney did not comment Monday night.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our county," District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement, "and my office will vigorously prosecute because businesses shouldn’t have to worry about employees stealing from the till."