Tipping the balance

The initial evidence pointed toward an open-and-shut embezzlement case. But the author describes the assumptions that almost led to an innocent employee's downfall, and he details his fraud examination that revealed the truth.

In early 2014, Paul Knowles, a criminal defense attorney, approached me seeking help with an alleged fraud. He said that his client, Samantha Thompson, a 56-year-old married woman, had until recently been employed by Service Line Inc., a New Zealand-based not-for-profit community organization that provided home-care/sheltered-living facilities and services to adults with intellectual disabilities — "supported residents."

Thompson began working at Service Line in 2005 as a social worker. Over the next nine years she rose to area supervisor — responsible for the oversight of 10 to 15 staff and 20 supported residents at five group-care residential homes — before Service Line fired her. (I've changed all names in this article.)