Baton Rouge Woman Pleads Guilty To Embezzling $600,000 From Her Employer

BATON ROUGE, LA - United States Attorney Walt Green announced the conviction of DONNA M. DODSON, age 52, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who pled guilty today before Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson to five (5) counts of wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343. DODSON faces a maximum sentence of one hundred (100) years in prison and fines totaling $1,250,000.

According to the factual basis presented to the Court in connection with her plea in 2009, DODSON was hired by a surgical center used by physicians throughout the Baton Rouge area. DODSON worked as the company’s office manager until mid-2013. During that time, she engaged in a scheme to defraud her employer, by (a) creating false and fraudulent entries in the company’s accounting records and software that appeared to indicate that the company owed money to various third parties; (b) preparing check requests for the false entries she had created; and then (c) fraudulently altering each check request, before the check was actually printed, so that her own name would appear on the face of each check as the “payee.” As DODSON obtained the checks, she would deposit the funds into one of her personal accounts. In total, throughout the scheme, DODSON created and generated more than one hundred (100) checks and fraudulently obtained approximately $600,000.

This investigation is being conducted by the United States Secret Service and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. The matter is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Alan A. Stevens, who serves as a Deputy Chief.