A former worker at a Lake Worth Beach real estate firm is accused of stealing nearly $50,000 from the company. She used the money for personal things, like facial plastic surgery.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) said deputies started looking into the firm on October 30, 2024. A newly hired Financial Officer was auditing the payroll and finances at the Sympatico Real Estate firm.
The person accused of stealing, Pamela Depanicis, had worked at the real estate company for about four years. Her main jobs were handling payroll and managing employee reimbursements through Automatic Data Processing.
Deputies said that during the payroll audit by the new Financial Officer, some fishy payments were found. There was a pattern of fake reimbursements that went back to December 2022.
According to the probable cause affidavit, 59 – year – old Depanicis got $47,498.01 in reimbursements over many paychecks. She didn’t have proper receipts. After the Financial Officer noticed problems with the reimbursement records, they confronted Depanicis. Then she was fired from her job. PBSO said that at this firm, employees had to give receipts for any expenses. But without proper oversight, it was found that Depanicis hid a lot of her reimbursement requests.
The report said that while employees usually got corporate American Express cards for business expenses, Depanicis was reimbursing herself for claims that didn’t match any real costs.
To look into the embezzlement claims more, authorities asked for documents from Depanicis’s bank account. The bank records showed she used the reimbursements to spend big amounts at Toyota, FPL, Geico, and at a facial plastic surgery center.
Depanicis was arrested on Wednesday. Now she faces charges of grand theft. The amount stolen is more than $20,000 but less than $100,000.
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