| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 16, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN FRANCISCO – United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that Zenaida L. Smith was sentenced on October 15, 2008 to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution for embezzling more than $480,000 from her former employer Panalpina, Inc.
Ms. Smith pleaded guilty on February 11, 2008 to charges of unauthorized access to a protected computer, wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. According to the plea agreement, Ms. Smith was employed as a Payroll Manager from August 2004 to June 2006 at Panalpina, Inc., a Swiss air freight company that does business throughout the United States and the world. Smith worked at Panalpina’s North American headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Between February 2005 and June 2006, Ms. Smith authorized more than $480,000 in sham payments that were directed to be paid in the name of a former Panalpina employee. Smith previously had stolen that former Panalpina employee’s identity information and added that former employee as a co-owner on Smith’s credit union account. The sham payments directed by Smith were deposited into that account.
Ms. Smith, 59, of Santa Clara, was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 24, 2007. A Superseding Indictment was returned on February 5, 2008.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel following a guilty plea to one count of unauthorized access of a protected computer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030, one count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, one count of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957, and one count of aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. Judge Patel also sentenced the defendant to a three year period of supervised release and ordered the defendant to pay restitution of $484,356.79. The defendant will begin serving the sentence on January 9, 2009.
Kyle F. Waldinger is the Assistant U.S. Attorney in the CHIP Unit who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Rawaty Yim. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the United States Secret Service.
Further Information:
Case #: 07 CR 0246 MHP
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Jack Gillund at (415) 436-6599 or by email at Jack.Gillund@usdoj.gov.
This site does not contain all press releases or court filings and is not an official record of proceedings. Please contact the Clerk of Courts for the United States District Court for official copies of documents and public information.