In September 2025, Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga sentenced Hava Yfrah Austin, a former Plantation, Florida, bookkeeper and owner of Accounting Solutions Today, P.A., to 51 months in federal prison for orchestrating a multi?year embezzlement scheme through which she stole approximately $9.8 million from her longtime employer.
Austin had previously pled guilty to wire fraud and filing a false income tax return after she failed to report the stolen funds, and the court ordered both forfeiture and restitution.
From 2018 through April 2024, Austin used her signature authority over the victim company's bank accounts to execute unauthorized wire transfers from the company's accounts to her own business, spending much of the stolen money on gambling at local casinos and through online gaming platforms. To hide the theft, she falsified accounting entries in the company's ledgers, including creating fraudulent entries under fake, but similar?sounding, vendor names.
Source: https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/former-plantation-bookkeeper-sentenced-to-federal-prison-for-9-point-8-million-embezzlement-scheme
Commentary
Below is a quote from one of the U.S. attorneys involved in the prosecution:
This defendant betrayed the trust placed in her, stole nearly $10 million, and gambled it away," said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. Our Office will hold accountable those who abuse positions of trust and conceal their crimes, and we will ensure victims see justice and restitution.
Gambling addiction and embezzlement are frequently intertwined because access to organizational funds can provide a ready and illicit source of money to feed compounding betting losses and compulsive play. In this case, the bookkeeper diverted approximately $9.8 million over several years and used much of it to gamble at local casinos and through online gaming platforms, illustrating how a hidden addiction combined with weak internal controls can transform a trusted employee into a significant fraud risk.
The tipping point is usually when an individual in a position of financial trust begins to rationalize unauthorized transfers as temporary "loans" to cover gambling losses. The conduct can quickly become a sustained scheme involving falsified records and repeated theft.
The case also underscores how false accounting entries and fabricated or similar?sounding vendor names can be used to conceal the diversion of funds, allowing gambling?driven embezzlement to continue undetected for extended periods.
Once the pattern of transfers and bogus ledger entries is established, the perpetrator often becomes reliant on the scheme to manage both mounting debts and the psychological compulsion to continue gambling, further increasing the loss exposure for the employer until the misconduct is finally uncovered by an audit, bank inquiry, or law enforcement investigation.
To mitigate this risk, organizations must be intentional about who is granted signature authority over bank accounts and payment mechanisms, especially for employees involved in bookkeeping, accounts payable, or cash management.
Granting a single individual both signature authority and responsibility for maintaining the general ledger or vendor records concentrates power and reduces the likelihood that unauthorized transfers, fictitious payees, or unusual transaction patterns will be challenged.
Effective safeguards include segregating duties so that no one person controls authorization, recordkeeping, and reconciliation, and requiring dual signatures or secondary approvals above defined thresholds for wires, ACH transfers, and checks.
Independent, periodic reconciliations by someone other than the person with signature authority, as well as regular review of bank statements, vendor master files, and exception reports by management or an external accountant, make it more difficult to hide fabricated vendors and falsified entries.?
Organizations should also implement mandatory vacation and job-rotation policies for personnel with financial authority, supported by a culture that encourages reporting of concerns about unexplained lifestyle changes, gambling behavior, or resistance to oversight.
The final takeaway is that when the above steps are combined with clear written policies, documented approval workflows, and routine monitoring of electronic banking activity, these measures reduce the opportunity for an employee with signature authority to exploit that trust to fund gambling or other personal pursuits at the organization's expense.
