Woman charged with embezzlement and forgery gets 10 months in prison

A former cashier/underwriter of an insurance company who was charged with 54 counts of embezzling money from her former employer and forging a credit card has pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Rochelle Mendiola Camacho pleaded guilty to three counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received and three counts of misuse of credit card.

Superior Court associate judge David A. Wiseman sentenced Camacho to a total of 10 months in prison to serve without parole starting on Nov. 21, 2011. After completing her sentence, Camacho will be placed on probation for three years.

She was also made to pay $21,500 in restitution to the victims.

“Where the defendant has the ability to repay-and fails to make a good effort to do so-revocation proceedings will be initiated,” Wiseman said in a written order issued Wednesday.

Camacho was also required to write a letter of apology to her former employer, Marianas Insurance Co. and authorize the company to publicize the letter to its customers and potential customers.

Although neither the prosecution and the defense mentioned the fact that Camacho, on July 14, 2011, had a civil judgment rendered against her for the same theft and for which she is convicted of, Wiseman said he factored this in his decision to accept the plea agreement.

In that civil case, the judge noted, Camacho was ordered to pay punitive damages as well.

Camacho’s jury trial was supposedly to start on Monday, Oct. 31, but she decided to enter a plea agreement.

The Office of the Attorney General had charged Camacho with 17 counts of forgery, seven counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received, 10 counts of misuse of credit card, 10 counts of identity theft, and 10 counts of theft by unlawful taking.

An investigator for the White Collar Crimes/Public Corruption Task Force stated in his report that the manager of Marianas Insurance Co. Inc. reported the alleged embezzlement to the Department of Public Safety in October 2009 after the company’s accountant uncovered Camacho’s anomaly.

The investigator said the audit showed that many receipts were altered, cash payments received were under-reported, check payments had no receipts, and credit card holders’ signatures were forged.

The investigator’s report indicated that over $13,000 was embezzled.

The prosecutor alleged that Camacho also stole a total of $1,634.10 by forging a credit card belonging to a person and using it to purchase items at different stores on Saipan in 2009.