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Suspect arrested in $1.86 million staffing firm embezzlement case

February 26, 2015

A former employee accused of embezzling $1.86 million from Orange, Calif.-based Roth Staffing Companies was arrested this week and bail has not been granted, according to Jennifer Simonson, senior VP and general counsel for Roth.

According to a criminal complaint filed Feb. 11, Alma Edith Letona, working as a payroll tax accountant at Roth under the false name of Olga Figueroa, submitted false requests for tax payments and directed the payments to an account she controlled instead of to Roth’s third-party payroll tax processor, Ceridian Tax Service.

Letona was also responsible for attempting to locate former Roth employees with uncashed Roth checks and making sure they got paid. The complaint alleges she deposited about 200 of these uncashed checks into her own account after forging the intended payee’s endorsements.

“This was a very sophisticated and planned-out embezzlement, so it would have been virtually impossible for any employer to have caught it,” said Simonson.

Letona did a good job presenting a false identity and was very clever about creating background accounting documents, according to Simonson.

“We do a good job of having a lot of control processes in our company. It was very planned out,” Simonson said.

Roth terminated Figueroa’s employment about Oct. 1, 2014, for time card and attendance issues, and discovered 10 unauthorized wires in about December. The wires ranged from $72,425 to $282,587.

Letona’s alias' include Olga Iris Figueroa, Alma Olga Iris Manjama and Olga Iris Manjang.

The FBI believes Letona used part of the unauthorized funds from Roth to purchase two Lake Forest, Calf. properties and the United States Attorney's Office has filed to take control of the properties.

“We are incredibly grateful to the FBI for its quick resolution for us and are hopeful she gets a long sentence once she is convicted,” said Simonson.