Why you screen candidates – woman embezzles for third time for take of $1.35m

If you can save your company $1 million, you’re going to take advantage of that opportunity, right? Here at GroupOne Background Screening, we can offer you one solution – vigorously screen your job candidates, especially those working with money.

In a court case on Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, one Lisa Hill pleaded guilty to stealing cash from her employer. And it was the third such guilty plea in less than a decade.

As stated by a local reporter, “Why do people keep hiring her to take care of money?”

The 41-year-old Hill, a resident of Belmont, North Carolina, evidently began her spree in 2012 when, according to court documents, she stole more than $800,000 from Indian Motorcycles where she worked as a senior accountant.

When initially accused, Hill sent a series of fake emails to her bosses posing as an attorney. This phantom attorney assured the company the missing funds would be repaid from a series of nonexistent accounts. One would think this case would be more than enough to end Hill’s accounting career. Not so fast.

Last summer, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged her with issuing 15 checks to herself between 2019 and 2020 drawn on the accounts of an unnamed Charlotte-based company, which had hired Hill as its comptroller. So, while she was still paying the Indian Motorcycles’ money back, she was able the steal an additional $22,000.

With thefts and fraudulent-check schemes hanging over her, Hill was then hired as chief financial officer at GRH Development Resources, a development company in North Carolina. The company was a developer of Riverwalk, a sprawling residential community on the Catawba River. According to federal charges filed this month, Hill pocketed an additional $550,000 while at GRH.

From 2020 to 2021, prosecutors claim Hill funneled company money to herself for BMW car payments, mortgage payments and a trip to Disney World. And yes, you guessed right – she used some of the stolen funds to repay what she embezzled from previous stops on her résumé.

At GroupOne, we’ve heard of similar cases over the years, and we always ask the same question, “How did this person keep getting hired for financial positions given her criminal history?”

This week, Hill pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making false statements. She will be sentenced at a later date.

Hill’s total take from her last three jobs – $1.35 million.

So, we’ll post the question again, “Looking for a way to save your company $1 million?”