FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2010
CONTACT: Erica Terry Derryck, DA Harris’ Office, (415) 553-1167
DISTRICT ATTORNEY HARRIS ANNOUNCES ARREST AND CHARGING IN $2.6 MILLION EMBEZZLEMENT
SAN FRANCISCO – District Attorney Kamala D. Harris announced today the arrest and charging of Maria Lourdes B. Dionisio and Hannah Yau for their alleged involvement in a $2.6 million dollar embezzlement scam.“The conduct alleged in this case is a classic example of the fox guarding the hen house,” said District Attorney Kamala D. Harris. “To pull off a fraud of this magnitude over a number of years is about more than just being a rogue employee. There is a level of planning and sophistication involved here that makes this crime especially egregious.”
Maria Lourdes B. Dionisio, age 46, of Pacifica, is charged with violating Penal Code sections 487(a), grand theft, 508, embezzlement, and 502(c)(1)(A) and 502(c)(1)(B), computer use crimes, all felonies. Hannah Yau, age 56, of Fremont, is charged with violating Penal Code sections 487(a), grand theft, and 508, embezzlement.
According to court documents, defendant Dionisio, a payroll clerk, and defendant Yau, a financial analyst, were formerly employed by Autonomy, Inc., a San Francisco software programming firm based in England. The two defendants allegedly caused or permitted many checks to be wrongfully issued to themselves over a four year period, resulting in a loss of approximately $2,600,000.
The alleged conduct came to the attention of corporate officers when defendant Dionisio was fired in May 2010, for reasons unrelated to theft. When she filed for unemployment insurance, defendant Dionisio listed an annual salary of $449,740, far in excess of her base salary of $63,000. An investigation revealed that bonus checks far in excess of those authorized had been paid to defendant Dionisio, who caused the checks to be drafted, and to defendant Yau, who also received checks herself, but did not alert her employer of the theft.
“This case involves an employee who allegedly embezzled from her company and then brazenly claimed her ill-gotten gains as legal compensation in order to inflate her unemployment benefits,” said District Attorney Harris. “The company impacted by the alleged conduct did the right thing in coming forward to report this case to authorities.”
The defendants were arrested on July 28, 2010 in San Francisco. Bail was set in the arrest warrant at $1,000,000 for each defendant. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 9:00 am.
The maximum statutory penalty each of the counts is three years in state prison and restitution. Excessive taking allegations may increase the state prison time by an additional three years. The arrest of defendant Dionisio and defendant Yau is the result of the investigation by Inspector Robert Steger of the San Francisco Police Department. Diane Knoles is the Assistant District Attorney prosecuting the case.
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