A former accountant who worked for a Marin Headlands resort has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion.
Stephanie Simontacchi, 48, of Petaluma stole 81 checks while she worked for the Cavallo Point Lodge near Sausalito, federal authorities said. She misappropriated $384,363.28 between October 2012 and March 2016.
Later, while working as an accountant at Redwood Credit Union, she embezzled about three dozen checks valued at nearly $440,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco. The credit union crimes occurred from April 2016 to April 2019.
“She deposited the checks into her personal bank and credit card accounts for personal use and used the funds to make payments toward a personal home equity line of credit,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a sentencing announcement on Friday.
The prosecution also said Simontacchi prepared false income tax returns for the years 2013 to 2019, shorting the government more than $100,000.
A federal grand jury indicted Simontacchi on 18 counts in June 2021. The charges included bank fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion.
Simontacchi pleaded guilty in February to one count of each crime. She agreed to pay at least $821,525.52 in restitution, the prosecution said.
In a memorandum submitted before the sentencing on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amani Floyd asked the judge for a 35-month prison term.
“The offenses committed by the defendant are serious,” Floyd wrote. “She stole over $800,000 from two of her former employers and used her knowledge and skill as an accountant to conceal her actions. She then underpaid her taxes for years.”
Simontacchi’s public defender, Gabriela Bischof, argued for one year in custody and three years of supervised probation. She said Simontacchi has been struggling for years with mental health and substance abuse issues stemming from her upbringing in a “doomsday cult.”
“The trauma and adversity Ms. Simontacchi has faced in her life does not give her license to commit crimes, but it should mitigate her sentence,” Bischof wrote. “Moreover, the extraordinary acceptance of responsibility she has demonstrated, as well as the recovery she independently undertook, should convince the Court that she is already unlikely to reoffend and a long sentence is unnecessary.”
Simontacchi, in a letter to U.S. District Judge William Orrick, expressed remorse for the crimes.
“I regret my many bad choices and understand that they were serious offenses that caused my previous employers many lost hours, unnecessary expenses, and feelings of shock, hurt, and betrayal,” she wrote. “My previous employers confided in me to handle their finances; I broke that trust by embezzling from them and committing fraud.”
Orrick sentenced her to 29 months in prison and ordered her to surrender by Aug. 11.
Simontacchi could not be reached for comment on Monday.