Former Nebraska Book Company Employee Sentenced for Embezzlement
United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that United States District Judge John Gerrard sentenced Melissa Ormonde, of Hickman, Nebraska, to 21 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud. In addition to her prison sentence, Ormonde was ordered to pay $237,823 in restitution to the Nebraska Book Company and serve three years of supervised release.
Beginning in August of 2008, Ormonde was employed at the Nebraska Book Company and had been in charge of payroll. Shortly after her employment began in 2008, Ormonde started embezzling money, which ultimately totaled approximately $237,823. The scheme was discovered in November of 2011, and when confronted, Ormonde confessed to what the investigation had discovered. She admitted that in June, 2010 she created a fictitious employee and had his wages deposited into one of her bank accounts. In addition, in October of 2011, she continued to pay an employee who had been terminated, again directing the payments to one of her bank accounts. All of this totaled approximately $115,700. Subsequent investigation by Nebraska Book uncovered duplicate paychecks for 23 other employees that dated back to 2008 and were deposited into one of Ormonde's bank accounts, bringing the total embezzlement to approximately $237,823. The Nebraska Book Company used a company called Automatic Data Processing (ADP) to pay its employees, so all payment directives sent by Ormonde constituted interstate wire communications.
This case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the Lincoln Police Department.
