GN bookkeeper gets 1 to 3 years in prison

Anthony Oreilly

A fashion-conscious bookkeeper who in April pleaded guilty to stealing more than $316,000 from her Great Neck employer to buy clothes and jewelry has been sentenced to one to three years in prison, according to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

Onesta Reyes, a resident of West Babylon, was also ordered by Nassau County Court Judge Jerald Carter to pay back the $316,639.40 she stole from her former employer, Chelmsford Contracting Corp.

“This defendant put the livelihoods of her co-workers at risk just to enrich herself on the company’s dime,” Rice said. “Today, she’s being held accountable for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have gone towards hiring actual people looking for work, not fake employees she created to fund her scam.”

Reyes’ lawyer, Daniel Graber, said he was “thrilled” with the sentencing because Rice was seeking a “significantly longer sentence” of two to six years. 

Graber also said Reyes is “eager to start to make amends for what she did.” 

Reyes in April admitted in Nassau County Supreme Court to inflating her 2011 annual salary from “$48,720 to $239,893,” according to Rice. 

The DA’s office said Reyes also used alternative methods to defraud her employer, including reimbursing herself for more than $89,000 in fictional expenses and creating a second employee under her name who she paid $22,729 in the last months of 2011.

Reyes “used the cash to buy clothing, shoes, and jewelry at Macy’s and other stores,” Rice said.

Rice said the district attorney’s office was informed of the theft after the company conducted an internal audit in May 2012. Reyes was fired from her job in June 2012.

“In this case, the shock of someone stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her employer to update her wardrobe is matched only by the brazen manner in which she committed these crimes,” Rice said in April. “Though this defendant used almost every trick in the book to steal from her employer, in the end she could not escape the consequences of her actions.”

Graber, in April, said Reyes feels “terrible about what happened.”

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