A former bookkeeper for a Poulsbo wellness center is accused of embezzling nearly $300,000 from the business over two years, according to court documents.
Prosecutors charged 47-year-old Karla Jean Rogers, of North Kitsap, with three counts of first-degree theft — for about $16,000 worth of personal charges made on a business credit card. , about $58,000 in funds transferred from a business PayPal account to a personal PayPal account and about $54,000 worth of wire transfers from a business bank account to a personal credit union account – in Kitsap County Superior Court at last week Rogers has yet to make an initial court appearance, according to court records.
The police investigation into Rogers began in August 2022 after the owner of the Acupuncture and Wellness Center on 8th Avenue in Poulsbo told police that Rogers, who was the business’s in-house bookkeeper, had recently quit and was stealing. money from the company to his personal accounts, according to court documents.
The business owner provided information about account numbers, emails and transactions made by Rogers and said he had access to all business funds and transactions. A Poulsbo police detective wrote in a report that the owner provided an extensive history of fraudulent transactions dating back to July 2020, and the detective determined that based on the records, Rogers stole from a total of about $293,000 over the course of two years, he wrote. Information obtained through search warrants for his Gmail, PayPal and Kitsap Credit Union accounts was also used in the investigation.
The detective wrote that Rogers linked the Capital One business credit card to his personal Amazon account, where he made about 230 purchases totaling about $16,000, none of which were approved by the owner.
Rogers also added his personal information to an old PayPal account linked to the business and used it to transfer money to his own PayPal account, the detective wrote, noting that initially, 48 transactions worth about $58,000 was discovered.
“Because Rogers had access to Excel bookkeeping records, she was able to disguise the transactions as customer refunds,” the detective wrote, noting that over a year, 106 transactions and funds worth and about $193,000 was transferred from the company’s bank account. In addition, there were other unauthorized transactions from the old PayPal account that Rogers accessed: to his daughter worth about $300, to a “general card” worth about $18,000 and of personal merchandise suspected to be owned by Rogers valued at about $1,000, the detective said. .
The detective also wrote that in the last month of his employment, Rogers accessed the business’s Stripe account and transferred funds totaling about $10,000 to personal Visa cards six times.
From July 2020 to July 2022, Rogers also entered and transacted 57 wire transfers totaling about $54,000 from the business’s Kitsap Bank account to his personal Kitsap Credit Union account, the detective wrote, noting that he was undercover the transfers and records them in QuickBooks as payments to vendors.