Felony Charges in Embezzlement Scheme

Two former employees of the county mosquito abatement district are facing a combined 16 felony charges in an embezzlement scheme that netted $635,000.

The district attorney has filed arrest warrants against onetime finance director Jo Ann Dearman, who was hired as Joann Seeney and has twice been convicted on similar charges, and accounting supervisor Vika Sinipata.

“Ms. Seeney is in state prison and my prosecutor will prepare an order for her return to face these charges,” said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

No court dates have been set, Wagstaffe said.

While the losses to the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District totaled $635,000, the women are being called to account for only $435,000 – a figure that encompasses the most easily-proven of the false expenditures, said district manager Robert Gay.

“We’ve submitted a claim for the complete amount to our insurers, but it’s different for insurers than for prosecutors,” he said. “Prosecutors need something simple to prove.”

The bulk of the losses -- a massive amount for an agency with an annual budget of $3.4 million -- took place during the fiscal year ending in June.

The scheme was uncovered at a January board meeting when the district questioned an unexplained overpayment of $150,000 from a pesticide fund and got no answers.

A bogus payment could more easily go unnoticed from the pesticide account than other money pools, given it has the highest number of expenditures and the greatest fluctuation, Deputy County Counsel Aimee Armsby told Patch.com.

Even when prosecutors win convictions, embezzlers face light sentences, he said. Seeney will be out in July, having received a reduced sentence for embezzling $568,000 from a private company.

A 2010 analysis by Marquet International logged a 17 percent increase in major embezzlements from 2009 to 2010.

Although the average loss approached $1 million, the average prison sentence for convicted embezzlers was less than four years, the study showed.

“Most of the time in these cases, the companies will just fire people, cover up the losses and move on,” Gay said. “We wanted to prosecute these people to the fullest extent of the law. We want these people to go to jail.”

While the district now conducts criminal background checks, such a process is useless if the applicant, like Sinipata, had not been previously convicted of a crime.

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