Prosecutor: Woman who embezzled $1M ‘wanted to travel more’

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

An accountant who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million from Centerville-based Don Wright Realty said she did it so that her family could travel more, according to federal prosecutors.

Deborah Yosick, 61, pleaded guilty last year to one count each of wire fraud and income tax evasion in Dayton’s U.S. District Court. But U.S. District Court Judge Walter Rice didn’t accept that version of the plea, according to court records.

So Yosick was back in court Tuesday to again enter a plea of guilty to those counts. Rice scheduled a hearing for Wednesday in which prosecutors and Yosick’s defense attorney may present arguments about how much time Yosick should spend in prison. Rice could sentence Yosick at the end of the hearing.

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Last year, the plea agreement Rice rejected dictated that Yosick would spend from 18 to 36 months in prison. The non-binding, advisory guideline calculated for Yosick’s term would have been 41 to 51 months.

A pre-sentence report filed before Rice rejected the plea recommended three years in prison, the same amount assistant U.S. attorney Amy Smith asked for in her sentencing memorandum.

Smith wrote that from 2010 until 2015, Yosick embezzled $1,098,778.23 from Don Wright Realty, the company she’d worked for since 1985.

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“After being asked why she stole, Yosick’s response was that her children and grandchildren wanted to travel more,” Smith wrote, adding that when caught Yosick admitted to about 10 percent of the thefts.

“Yosick used those embezzled funds to take her family on numerous vacations, to purchase vehicles, to attend sporting events, to perform a home renovation, and to pay down her mortgage on her previously owned home in Lebanon, Ohio.”

Yosick, now of Davenport, Fla., also failed to comply with tax filing requirements and evaded paying $255,571 in federal income taxes, according to court records.

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“Yosick’s crimes were not a product of any family financial or medical crises but rather were born out of her desire to live a lifestyle that was otherwise beyond her means,” Smith wrote.

“At the time of the offense, Yosick was making approximately $24 per hour despite having no training or education beyond a high school diploma.”

The sentencing memos of both Smith and defense attorney Michael Bly said that, as part of a common pleas lawsuit, Yosick has agreed to pay the money back and transfer her home to Don Wright Realty. The total amount owned is more than $978,000.

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Before Rice’s rejection of the plea, Bly asked the court for a sentence on the low end of what was an 18- to 36-month range, saying that Yosick “expressly acknowledges to the Court her responsibility for her actions and sincere regret for the loss she has caused.”

Bly also wrote that Yosick’s husband of 43 years, Mark, has gone back towork as a security officer at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

Bly also wrote that due to serious post-operative complications associated with a lumbar fusion surgery in 2016, “an imprisonment at the high end of the recommended range would harm Mrs. Yosick.”

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