November 30, 2009

Bookkeeper charged with $1.5 million embezzlement

     EUGENE — A Eugene businessman says he never realized that his printing company was failing because an embezzler was draining its funds from within.
     A 48-year-old bookkeeper, Victoria Marie Monfore, was charged this week with thefts police believe totaled $1.5 million from the shuttered IP/Koke printing company, which closed in December.
     The company said at the time that financial problems and changes in the printing industry contributed to the company's demise.
     CEO Jason Pierce said the century-old company would have survived if it weren't for the thefts.
     "We would have been in the black for cash flow each year," he told the Eugene Register-Guard.
     Detective Dan Lane said Monfore, of Springfield, is accused of forging company checks and making them payable to herself. She was arrested Wednesday and was held in the Lane County Jail on more than $5 million bail.      The jail didn't list a lawyer for her.
     Police said they believe the thefts began in 2003.
     Monfore worked 16 years for the company owned by Pierce's father, Dick. After the printing company folded, she worked for a family business that publishes catalogs of heavy equipment, trucks and trailers, Jason Pierce said.
     Pierce told the newspaper that he had seen accounting problems and fired one executive, but the problems persisted. He said he fired Monfore in June, and that her successor convinced him embezzlement was the only plausible explanation for the missing money.
     "I thought it was just poor performance," Pierce said. "You don't think that someone who works 16 years for you would do that. I had noticed problems and tried to talk to her, but she was very good at deflecting it and keeping information from me."
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com