NewUsed

Find by category:

Exhaust Notes

The Honda Crosstour: An Embezzler's Dream Car?

A Pennsylvania car-dealership employee who stole $10 million from her boss splurged on Honda's funky hatch-sedan.

By Claire_Martin Jun 22, 2012 3:21PM
Honda Crosstour photo by HondaPop quiz: If you went to the trouble of siphoning off $10 million from your employer over the course of seven years, what type of car would you buy with your pilfered pot of cash? If you answered Honda Crosstour, you have something in common with Patricia Smith, an employee of Pittsburgh's Baierl Acura dealership, who was found guilty of doing all of the above. Last month, Smith, the dealership's former controller, was sentenced to 78 months in prison for her misdeeds.

Some may consider part of her crime to be her pedestrian taste in vehicles, but Smith also bought nine other (cooler) vehicles that she gave to family members, including a ragtop Shelby Mustang for her husband and a Honda motorcycle for her son. 

The vehicles weren't Smith's only purchases, by far. She snatched up an eclectic mix of items during her extended crime spree, including Super Bowl tickets, entry to a VIP Mass with the pope, dinner with Kevin Spacey, a brunch catered by celebrity chef Ina Garten (aka the Barefoot Contessa), charter flights to Europe and the Caribbean, and a $5,600 autographed first edition of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." 

How did she steal from the dealership? "Beginning in December 2004, she electronically transferred money from an operating account to the company's payroll account and then into her personal bank accounts through a financial institution outside Pennsylvania," Nick Bunkley of Automotive News writes. "She altered the store's ledgers to make the transactions look legitimate and gave fake bank statements to Baierl's outside auditors."


To hide her thievery, Smith re-entered sold vehicles onto inventory reports that auditors checked, and she created a separate set of reports for the dealership's management.

 

Amazingly, the dealership didn't catch on until it had lost $10 million. According to Automotive News, an e-mail to Smith from Baierl's chief financial officer with questions about some of her accounting prompted Smith to quit. She then voluntarily confessed her crimes to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Her former employer claims to have emerged from the thefts unscathed. "Despite the amount of funds taken over time, there were no adverse impacts to our daily operations," Lee Baierl, president of Baierl Automotive, said in a statement. "Our business is doing well, and we have adopted stronger measures to prevent such a crime from ever occurring again."

Smith's crimes represent the fourth-largest embezzlement case nationwide across all industries, according to one study. Why was the dealership vulnerable to such egregious thievery to begin with? Reporting by Automotive News points to the economic environment. As dealerships have been forced to cut back on staff, their remaining employees have been given more responsibility with less oversight. 

According to Ron Sompels of the Illinois-based accounting firm Crowe Horwath, dealerships should beware the Jack or Jill of all trades. "When you get one person in charge of everything, it's a license to steal."
< Back to Exhaust Notes
User Picture
Write a comment...
1Comment
Troy Monroe (great_life)
Jun 25, 2012 5:14AM
avatar
Future CEO right there! If your going to steal that kind of money from your employee move out of country where you can't be touched by federal law enforcement.
Report
Please help us to maintain a healthy and vibrant community by reporting any illegal or inappropriate behavior. If you believe a message violates theCode of Conductplease use this form to notify the moderators. They will investigate your report and take appropriate action. If necessary, they report all illegal activity to the proper authorities.
Categories
100 character limit
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?

EXPLORE NEW CARS

MORE ON MSN AUTOS

Wheels of car-crazy celebsWheels of car-crazy celebs

The cars that celebrities choose to buy sometimes border on the eccentric.

ABOUT EXHAUST NOTES

Cars are cool, and here at MSN Autos we love everything about them, but we also know they're more than simply speed and style: a car is an essential tool, a much-needed accessory to help you get through your day-to-day life. What you drive is also one of the most important investments you can make, so we'll help you navigate your way through the car buying and ownership experiences. We strive to be your daily destination for news, notes, tips and tricks from across the automotive world. So whether it's through original content from our world-class journalists or the latest buzz from the far corners of the Web, Exhaust Notes helps you make sense of your automotive world.

Have a story idea? Tip us off at exhaustnotes@live.com.