NC woman embezzled $ 15 million to pay for weddings, jewelry, and luxury hotel rooms; Support of the extravagant lifestyle

TAYLORSVILLE, NC (WBTV) – Court records show that an Alexander County woman embezzled more than $ 15 million from her employer to fund an extravagant lifestyle, including paying for family members’ weddings, buying expensive jewelry, and more booking luxury hotels.

Donna Osowitt Steele, 52, of Taylorsville, NC, appeared before U.S. Judge David S. Cayer on Wednesday pleading guilty of referral fraud for embezzling more than $ 15 million from her former employer.

Steele pleaded guilty to the wire fraud embezzlement program, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $ 250,000. After submitting her admission of guilt, Steele was released on bail.

Dena J. King, US Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced her guilty admission.

According to the pleading documents filed and the advances made by Steele in court, the defendant carried out an extensive fraud scheme from at least 2013 through January 2020 to defraud her employer, who was identified in the court documents as Victim Company A, a privately owned U.S. Subsidiary of a foreign company that manufactures hard metal products.

The owners of victim society A and its parent company are based abroad.

Court records show that Steele embezzled over $ 15 million from victim company A and used the money to support a business she and her family run and to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

As Steele admitted in court on Wednesday, she was employed by victim company A from 1999 to January 2020.

Steele initially worked in the shipping department and was promoted to various positions within the company over the next 20 years, including the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO), which she held until she was fired in January 2020.

While serving as vice president and later CEO, court documents indicate that Steele used her positions to embezzle victim Company A’s funds in a variety of ways, including fraudulent company credit card purchases, company checks, Quickbooks transactions, and wire transfers.

For example, court documents filed indicate that Steele used corporate credit cards to pay for $ 6 million in personal expenses, including purchases of high-end retail stores, luxury hotel accommodations, and event tickets, expensive jewelry, paying for family weddings, and more to make purchases in connection with Opulence by Steele, a luxury clothing and boutique company founded by the defendant in 2013.

In addition to the credit card purchases, Steele admitted to writing about 98 checks totaling more than $ 2.8 million from victim Society A’s bank accounts, which Steele had transferred to her personal bank account.

In addition, Steele arranged for 127 fraudulent and unauthorized transfers to be carried out as Quickbooks transactions, with more than $ 4.7 million transferred from victim Company A’s bank accounts to their personal bank account.

According to court documents, during the same period, Steele made at least 117 fraudulent and unauthorized bank transfers totaling more than $ 2.2 million from victim Company A’s bank accounts to the defendant’s personal bank account, which she then used for her personal gain, including to finance a personal real estate deal.

According to the documents submitted, victim Company A had several difficulties as a result of Steele’s embezzlement, including sellers withhold products from the company for nonpayment or late payment, customers complaining that they were withheld despite their bills being paid on credit on time, employees whose corporate credit card has been declined trying to use it for legitimate business expenses, employees are not paid on time, and / or employees have canceled their insurance without warning.

Steele admitted that in an effort to hide the fraudulent system, she restricted communications and interactions between employees and owners for victim Company A and monitored the communications that took place on the true nature of victim Company A’s financial troubles.

A sentencing date has not been set.

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