Carson City District Judge Todd Russell on Monday rejected the recommendations of Parole and Probation and sentenced a 56-year-old Carson City woman to between 22 months and eight years in prison.
Georgeann McPeters admitted to embezzling some $252,000 from her employers, Larry and Sandee Dobson, at Sierra Furnace Works over nearly six years. McPeters handled payroll for the business and, according to court records, wrote 205 checks from the company’s account to her husband even though he wasn’t employed there for most of that period.
Dobson, in a statement he read to the court, said if he had known what she was doing back in 2009, he might have been able to avoid filing bankruptcy.
“This took an extreme toll on our emotions, leaving us in shame and ridicule,” he said.
Dobson said that because of what she did, “my life’s earnings have been taken from me; my reputation has been destroyed.”
Over the 15 years McPeters worked for the Dobsons, they said, she was considered part of their family.
“I even gave her away at her wedding,” he told the court.
“I will never understand or overcome how she could come to work every day knowing what she was doing to our business, myself and my family,” said his wife in her statement to the court.
The pre-sentence report recommended probation for McPeters, in part because she had no prior criminal history. But Russell told her he was rejecting that recommendation because of the “conscious, deliberate” nature of the crime. Prosecutor Mark Krueger said Russell told McPeters she “had literally violated the trust of the victims.”
McPeters was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution, an amount agreed upon by the prosecution and defense.