Former Assistant Office Manager of Bellingham business sentenced to two years in prison for $1.4 million embezzlement scheme

Seattle – A 46–year-old Sedro-Wooley, Washington woman was sentenced on Thursday November 6, 2025, to two years in prison for wire fraud and filing a false tax return announced U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd. Amy Siniscarco was the Assistant Office Manager for a regional hardware retail and leasing business from 2013-2022. During that time, she executed a scheme to embezzle more than $1.4 million from her employer. U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead imposed three years of supervised release to follow the prison term.

According to records filed in the case, for nearly ten years Siniscarco was a trusted employee, being trained to take over as the office manager.  However, Siniscarco betrayed that trust by using a variety of methods to steal company funds: Siniscarco issued fraudulent company checks to herself and to organizations whose financial accounts she controlled; she initiated unauthorized electronic payments to herself and on her behalf; she made unauthorized personal purchases on company credit cards; and she misappropriated the company’s petty cash.  In order to accomplish the theft Siniscarco forged signatures or inveigled those with signing authority to sign blank checks for a seemingly legitimate purpose. She altered the company books to make it appear that payments were to legitimate vendors or for tax purposes to hide the theft via electronic payments. Instead of cancelling credit cards as requested by company executives, Siniscarco, used the cards to make unauthorized purchases for her personal benefit, including more than 1,800 unauthorized transactions on her personal Amazon account.  Siniscarco concealed the credit card statements from the company by having the statements sent electronically only to her work email address.

Siniscarco used the embezzled funds to pay her mortgage, purchase vehicles, fund her travel and leisure, pay her childcare and healthcare, and purchase securities. While Siniscarco lived above her means with stolen funds, her coworkers lost out on bonuses and profit sharing.

While she was stealing from the company, Siniscarco failed to report that income on her tax returns. Over the five years charged in the case Siniscarco failed to report $956,323 in income, leading to a tax loss of $226,826.

In asking for a 33-month prison sentence, Assistant United States Attorney Jehiel Baer wrote to the court, “while Ms. Siniscarco was lining her pockets with embezzled funds, the company was forced to endure budget cuts and borrow at high interest to stay afloat. Ms. Siniscarco’s colleagues also lost bonuses and profit sharing.  The whole time, Ms. Siniscarco knew she was secretly stealing, placing the company’s financial security—and her colleagues’ jobs—at risk. When her fraud was finally discovered, Ms. Siniscarco instead placed blame on innocent coworkers, further degrading the trust the company had placed in her.”

Judge Whitehead ordered Siniscarco to pay $1,424,696 in restitution to the victim company and $226,826 to the United States Treasury, with credit for payments made to date.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jehiel Baer.