How a Medtech Bookkeeper Allegedly Fleeced Her Employer

A Minnesota woman stole nearly $900,000 over more than seven years from a small mammography informatics company.

Chris Newmarker and Brian Buntz

PenRad Technologies hired Karen Breyette as a controller/bookkeeper in January 2008. Within five months, she was stealing from the small mammography informatics company, according to prosecutors in Hennepin County, MN, where PenRad used to be based.

Breyette managed to steal nearly $900,000 from the company, now based in Buffalo, MN, before her activities were finally discovered in May 2015. Because of the statute of limitations, she is only charged with taking nearly $700,000 since August 2010.

No matter what, it is a lot of money, especially considering that Manta.com lists the 19-year-old company's annual revenue at $2.5 to 5 million. It has 10 to 19 employees, according to the site.

"We prosecute numerous cases each year of people embezzling from their employer or a volunteer organization, but this is one of the largest amounts we have seen," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said a news release.

Breyette did not immediately respond to a request for comment over LinkedIn. Other Twin Cities media were also unsuccessful reaching her.

In all, seven separate charges were filed against Breyette, each of them felonies punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment and/or a $100,000 fine.

The complaint states that she used a multi-pronged strategy to embezzle money that included diverting cash using the firm's accounting software and its electronic payroll system, misuse of her corporate credit card, and even forging the company president's signature on checks. One of her last forged checks was used to buy nearly $7,000 in silver bullion bars that police say they found in her St. Bonificious, MN, home.

Most of the money is said to have been obtained from the company's payroll software, which she used to send electronic payments to herself and her husband as well as arranging fraudulent money transfers. Breyette appears to have skipped paying herself salary in 2011 and 2012, but it was only to the tune of $62,118.62 after she had illicitly taken $185,830.71, say prosecutors, who argue that her attempts to pay the company back show that she knew she was guilty. The prosecutors state, however, that she stopped deferring payments to herself in 2013, stepping up the frequency of her withdrawals and the amount of money she took. "In 2013, she overpaid herself $167,424.30. In 2014, she stole $205,165.85, and in the first five months of 2015, she took $105,509," according to the complaint.

Stolen money paid for hotels, a vacation Breyette took with her mother, clothes, home improvement items, jewelry, and even $42,000 to a company called Gentle Green Cleaners that Breyette co-owned, prosecutors say.

Police in Minnetonka, MN, where PenRad was based until 2012, discovered the full extent of the theft after a detective researched banking and financial records associated with Breyette and PenRad and obtained a search warrant for her home. The Minnetonka police detective interviewed Breyette, and says she admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars during the interview.

Minnetonka police booked Breyette on July 15. But she is no longer in custody, according to the criminal complaint.

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Brian Buntz is the editor-in-chief of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @brian_buntz. Chris Newmarker is senior editor of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker