A woman who siphoned off $10 million from her employer and blew it on gambling jaunts and extravagant shopping sprees -- buying, among other things, 400 pairs of shoes -- pleads guilty.
A weeping Annette Yeomans pleaded guilty Thursday morning to 10 of the 17 embezzlement-related counts she faced. She now faces 18 in prison.
Court records filed in a civil lawsuit against the North County woman showed she owned five vehicles -- including a motor home -- took trips to Italy and at one time had a $92,000 Nordstrom’s bill.
Yeomans and her husband John were both employees of Quality Woodworks in San Marcos.
Annette was the chief financial officer at Quality Woodworking in San Marcos from 2001 to 2007.
Criminal charges were brought after a credit card company smelled something fishy when they noticed payments were being made with company checks.
A closer look at the civil suit breaks down her outrageous spending habits. In 2007 and part of 2008, she paid:
- $1 million- plus to Chase Credit Card services
- $92,873.52 to Nordstrom‘s
- $48,552.05 to Neiman Marcus
“She admitted wrong doing and stated she wished that she had died before I found out what she did,” court records quote Quality Woodworks president Gregg Durmer.
Wished she had died, okay, but apparently not before buying a motor home, a GMC, a Cadillac, a Nissan, a Dodge and an off-road vehicle. A tool collection, a guitar collection, 400 pairs of shoes, 160 purses and $300,000 dollars in designer clothing were found in her closet, according to sheriff’s investigators.
How did she get away with it for so long? Investigators say she had control of the books and her employer trusted her.
As for John Yeomans, there are no criminal charges filed. Investigators said there was just not enough evidence. But in the civil suit, lawyers maintain, his failure to disclose the embezzlement was deliberate and he enjoyed enormous personal benefits that included vehicles, gun and guitar collections and tools.
In fact, when Durmer contacted John Yeomans at his home in March of 2008, Yeomans “stated that everything in their household belonged to Mr. Durmer,” according to court records.
Quality Woodworks Inc. dismissed the civil lawsuit in October after Annette Yeomans agreed to turn over all her assets to the custom cabinetry business, according to the North County Times.
