Deborah Tangredi, Floral Park bookkeeper, stole from 2 employers, DA says

A Floral Park bookkeeper on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a pair of felonies for stealing nearly half a million dollars from two employers in Nassau, the district attorney’s office said.

“The defendant was a trusted employee who systematically stole approximately $467,000 from her employers by writing herself checks from company bank accounts,” acting Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement.

Deborah Tangredi, 53, faces a 1 year prison sentence when she returns to court Feb. 24, and must make full restitution for her crimes, which ran from 2009 to 2014, prosecutors said in a news release.

The bookkeeper and administrative assistant for a Great Neck-based Realtor and mortgage lender paid her car loan, home equity line of credit, and American Express and Citi Card accounts by falsifying the check registers, the release said. This made it appear that the payees were companies her employer would do business with, it said.

Tangredi’s theft of about $450,000, divided into about 100 checks, only came to light during audits after her employer in 2013 closed both businesses.

The district attorney’s office said it then discovered Tangredi had stolen about $17,000 from a law firm in Mineola.

She had forged signatures on checks, changed the name of the payee in the company’s ledger, and altered her employer’s bank statements, Singas said.

On December 18, Tangredi is obliged to pay $405,000 in restitution to her first employer, who also received $25,000 from an insurance policy.

The remaining amount — $24,500 — will be exacted from her bail money once it is released, Singas said.

Tangredi already has repaid about $17,000 to her second employer, the release said.