Crime & Safety
Westport Woman Sentenced for Embezzling $1.8 Million
Court documents state the woman stole from charitable foundations and her employer.
A Westport woman was sentenced Thursday to nearly four years of imprisonment for embezzling more than $1.3 million from three charitable foundations, and approximately $500,000 from her employer.
Soozi Folsom, 55, of Westport, worked as the financial manager for a Westport-based accounting law firm that had been retained by three charitable foundations, according to court documents.
Between September 2008 and November 2011, she generated at least 124 fraudulent checks drawn on the bank accounts from the foundations and made payable to "Groundhog, LLC," and entity she controlled.
She forged the signatures on the fraudulent checks, signing the name of an individual with signatory authority on the foundations' bank accounts, and then took the money for personal use.
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Folsom covered up her scheme by manipulating transactions in the accounting software systems that handled the foundation's accounting and bookkeeping.
An investigation into the fraud was launched by Westport Police. Folsom pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud on Sept. 17, 2012.
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Judge Vanessa Bryant ordered Folsom to pay $1,836,973 in restitution. Folsom was sentenced to 46 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
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