Prosecutors in Essex County Massachusetts say that Kimberly Mastronardi, a Marblehead resident stole over one half million dollars in a five year period from her employer. It is alleged that she did so by submitting false payroll records in her capacity of bookkeeper of a small plumbing company. Mastronardi’s employer got wind of this situation when earlier this year when vendors complained of not getting paid. Earlier this year police were alerted to the company’s suspicions. In March Mastronardi was arrested and charged for the criminal activity in the Lynn District Court. Bail has been set at five thousand dollars. This is not Mastronardi’s first brush with the law. In 1998 she was arrested on similar charges when an employer claimed that she stole approximately one hundred thousand dollars. She was also employed as a bookkeeper at that time. In 2002 the defendant was convicted of improper use of a credit card out of Salem.
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Massachusetts Woman With History Of Theft Accused Of Larceny From Employer
Given the amount of money stolen from the employer I would be surprised if the prosecution of this case remains in the district court. Usually district attorneys indict cases like this one and prosecuted the defendants in the Superior Court. This permits the prosecution to ask for more jail time after a conviction. It also gives a judge discretion to sentence to a county house of correction or state prison. It appears like this case will be indicted as a “larceny by scheme“, notwithstanding the fact that there were several larcenies associated with the defendant’s conduct. To be convicted of that crime the prosecution must prove that successive takings were “actuated by a single, continuing criminal impulse or intent or are pursuant to the execution of a general larcenous scheme, such successive takings constitute a single larceny, regardless of the extent of the time which may have elapsed between each taking.”
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