Car dealer’s accountant receives 22-month embezzlement sentence

Wenatchee World, The (WA)

Sept. 11--WENATCHEE -- A bookkeeper who stole more than $190,000 from the Wenatchee auto dealership that hired her was sentenced Monday to 22 months in prison, after admitting to a drug addiction that contributed to her crime.

Sandra Dawn Allen, 36, pleaded guilty last month to first-degree theft and five charges of second-degree identity theft. Chelan County Superior Court Judge T.W."Chip" Small also ordered Allen to repay about $210,000 to Wenatchee KIA and its insurance underwriters, for the money stolen as well as investigative costs.

Allen joined the dealership in 2003. In 2012, she began stealing from the business by forging checks and pocketing ready cash to support an opiate addiction that she had suffered for seven years. Police and prosecutors believe she ultimately stole about $192,000 from the dealership before she was caught and confessed in March 2016.

In a letter to Small, Wenatchee KIA vice president Brad Kane said Allen's acts financially damaged the business and injured his parents, who own the dealership. "Ms. Allen knowingly and without remorse endangered my parents' business (and) retirement, and cost many of her friends and co-workers their jobs," he wrote.

At the time of her thefts, Allen lived in Quincy. She has since relocated to Kitsap County. Court records show she was previously convicted in 2008 of trying to obtain Vicodin with a fraudulent prescription, and underwent addiction treatment in 2015. After her 2016 arrest, she began using methamphetamine.

Reach Jefferson Robbins at 509-664-7123 or robbins@wenatcheeworld.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRobbinsWW. Contact him securely by PGP key.