Bookkeeper sentenced to 18 months for embezzlement

A former bookkeeper for a San Marcos woodworking company who pleaded guilty to siphoning nearly $10 million from the firm over a seven-year period to feed her gambling, prescription drug and shopping addictions was sentenced to 18 years in state prison.

Annette Yeomans, 51, was sentenced Monday by Vista Judge Robert Kearny, The North County Times reported. With good behavior, she will have to serve only half of her 18-year prison sentence.

“The amount of loss in this case is staggering, and the manner in which you spent it can only be described as selfish indulgence,” Kearny told Yeomans at her sentencing, according to the Times.

During a hearing last month before the same judge, the defendant pleaded guilty to nine counts of forgery and one count of filing a false tax form.

The defendant, who had a string of arrests for prostitution in the late 1980s, had faced 111 felony charges.

At an earlier hearing, Deputy District Attorney Anna Winn said Yeomans wrote 582 checks on the business accounts of Quality Woodworks Inc. to cover personal credit card expenses and cash advances.

Affidavits filed in support of an arrest warrant said the defendant spent most of the stolen money gambling at casinos, buying clothing, jewelry and cars, and taking trips to New York, Las Vegas and Europe.

From 2001 to 2007, Yeomans lost as much as $42 million gambling in casinos, sheriff’s department investigators said.

American Express alerted the woodworking company to the embezzlement in early 2008, and the firm sued Yeomans and recouped about $350,000, according to investigators.

The losses prompted the firm to forego employee raises, lay off some workers and restructure its operation, investigators said.

Yeomans worked at the company for about 15 years and her now-estranged husband, John Yeomans, was a cabinet installer there. He is not facing criminal charges in the case, and the couple have entered divorce proceedings, according to the Times.

Tags: Annette Yeomans, gambling, prescription drugs, Quality Woodworks Inc., SDNN

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