A former officer at a Downtown Pittsburgh mechanical systems firm admitted Tuesday that she stole $1.6 million from her company for gambling splurges in Pittsburgh and Las Vegas and didn’t pay any taxes on it.
Constance Stobert, 57, the former controller at Mechanical Operations Co., waived indictment in federal court and pleaded guilty to 11 counts of wire fraud and lying on her tax returns.
Stobert, a resident of Renfrew in Butler County who had worked for the Liberty Avenue company since 1994, had been the target of an investigation by the IRS criminal division and the FBI.
From 2014 to July 2018, she embezzled $1.67 million to fund her gambling junkets and to pay her personal expenses. She wrote checks on the company’s business accounts in order to make personal credit card payments and used company credit cards to withdraw cash from ATMs in casinos in Pittsburgh and Vegas.
She also filed false tax returns in connection to the thefts by not reporting the stolen money for tax years 2016 through 2019, costing the government $545,990.
U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab said he would sentence her in the fall.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
