Accountant pleads guilty to embezzling $1 million from realty business

Deborah Yosick admitted to stealing from Don Wright Realty where she worked for 30 years.

The former accountant of Don Wright Realty pleaded guilty in Dayton’s U.S. District Court to embezzling more than $1 million from her employer to pay her American Express bills and purchase money orders.

Deborah Yosick, 60, now of Davenport, Fla., pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and income tax evasion. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Sharon Ovington released Yosick on her own recognizance.

Those counts carry a possible maximum combined sentence of 25 years in prison, but if the plea agreement is accepted by U.S. District Court Judge Walter Rice, Yosick will spend from 18 to 36 months in prison.

Yosick also must make restitution of $1,098,778.23 to Don Wright Realty, LLC and $255,571 to the Internal Revenue Service. She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 21.

Other local high-profile embezzlement cases include former bank manager Amy Scarpelli (66 months for $5.2 million) and Diane Niehaus (60 months for more than $1 million).

Yosick worked for the Centerville-based Donald C. Wright Investments, LLC and Don Wright Realty, LLC for 30 years from 1985 until 2015. The company provides commercial, industrial and residential services in the Dayton area.

“It’s a very disappointing thing to happen, but I guess things like that happen now and then,” Wright said Friday. “Whatever the judge says is what’s going to happen I guess.”

Yosick’s attorney, Michael Bly, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Sistla said he couldn’t comment at this time.

A civil case was filed by Don Wright against Yosick in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in which she confessed judgment in favor of Wright “in the amount of $1,098,778.23 together with costs of the action and interest from the date hereof at the legally allowable rate.”

“Tax evasion and embezzlement schemes of this magnitude and with this degree of trickery, dishonesty and deceit, deserves to be punished,” said Kathy A. Enstrom, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office. “The IRS, FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s Office remain determined and vigilant in ferreting out such schemes to cheat the honest taxpayers.”

Court documents indicate Yosick was responsible for handling accounts payable and receivable and crediting tenant accounts as rents were received and preparing deposit slips and making deposits on behalf of Don Wright.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation probe found that, between 2010 and 2015, Yosick devised a scheme to defraud and embezzle money — including nearly $613,000 in cash — from Don Wright by using rental payments to pay her personal credit card bill by initiating electronic transfers from a Don Wright bank account.

Yosick admitted she used a portion of the cash she embezzled to purchase money orders from supermarkets, Walmart and post offices and used the money orders to pay her personal American Express bills.

Also, between March 2013 and October 2015, Yosick embezzled funds from Don Wright by causing approximately 70 electronic transfers (ACH payments) from a company bank account to American Express in order to pay her personal credit card bill.

Yosick also committed income tax evasion by filing a false income tax return for the 2014 income tax year by under-reporting her taxable income by about $303,808, which resulted in tax due and owing of about $94,601, which represented the embezzled funds from Don Wright.

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