Va. Beach woman gets two years for embezzlement

NORFOLK

A woman who admitted stealing more than a half-million dollars from her employer pleaded for leniency in federal court Monday, citing a long list of emotional difficulties, including her husband leaving her - not for another woman, but to become one.

U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson sentenced Diana L. Farmer-Forston to two years in prison for embezzling $567,000 from the Virginia Beach law firm Bennett and Zydron. The judge cut about a year off what federal prosecutors requested but did not go as low as her lawyer requested.

"I'm so very sorry for my decisions," Farmer-Forston told the judge. "I'm ashamed of myself."

Farmer-Forston, 54, of Virginia Beach, went to work for Bennett and Zydron in 2005 as a bookkeeper.

Beginning in 2007, she began writing law firm checks to herself and depositing them into her credit union account.

Over a number of years, she admitted forging 210 checks totaling more than $567,000. She hid the crime by filling in the firm's accounting ledger with the names of legitimate clients or hired professionals.

Firm partner John Zydron said the ledgers appeared normal but he and his partner, Carlton Bennett, couldn't figure out why they were ending up short. In those years, they had to cut employee bonuses and benefits.

"We never knew about it and it went on and on and on," Zydron told the judge. "The money was just disappearing."

The firm finally hired an accountant who discovered the embezzlement. Farmer-Forston quit when she realized her scheme would be uncovered, Zydron said, but not before ransacking her office.

When confronted by authorities, Farmer-Forston readily admitted what she had done.

She also told them that she had loaned more than $300,000 of the money to a female co-worker who claimed that she needed money for cancer treatment.

The co-worker, who was not identified, signed a note to Farmer-Forston promising to repay the money with 4.5 percent interest monthly.

The co-worker did not have cancer. She was never charged because she was not aware the money was being embezzled, according to court papers. Zydron also said a person can't be charged with stealing from stolen money.

Farmer-Forston's attorney, Richard Colgan, portrayed Farmer-Forston as herself a victim of the co-worker's scam.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury, calling that argument "the height of audacity," instead labeled it "dishonor among thieves."

"It may be dishonor among thieves," Colgan followed, but it was also "a despicable exploitation of someone who was mentally ill at the time."

Colgan cited a number of other issues in arguing for leniency. He asked the judge for no more than 18 months in prison with some of it in a halfway house or home confinement.

Farmer-Forston, an Indiana native, had been battling depression and other mental health issues since childhood, where she was raised in an environment of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, Colgan said.

Farmer-Forston's first marriage ended in 1999 after 25 years when her husband informed her that he had decided to undergo a sex change operation.

Although she was already suffering from mental health issues, "this event caused Mrs. Farmer-Forston to question her own life and existence and triggered a massive depression," Colgan said in a court filing.

Jackson, the judge, gave her a break but not as much as she wanted. Salsbury had asked for a sentence of around three years in prison, the top end of federally recommended guidelines.

Jackson also ordered her to repay the money, though he acknowledged she likely never will.

"That's the reality," he said.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com