Kenyon Woman Convicted For Embezzling Over $700,000

Minneapolis - A Kenyon woman was found guilty in federal court Tuesday of embezzling over $700,000 from two different employers.

Get our free mobile app

The U.S Attorney's Office said 59-year-old Kimberly Sue Peterson-Janovec was found guilty of 24 counts of fraud, aggravated identity theft, and tax crimes. Peterson-Janovec embezzled from the owners of several Denny’s restaurant franchises around the Twin Cities and from a family-owned construction company in Rochester.

Prosecutors said Peterson-Janovec became the Director of Operations for MI5 in April 2014. Authorities said that she used her position to embezzle funds by generating and submitting false requests for vendor payments and then diverting those payments for her own use and benefit. Peterson-Janovec also manipulated the company’s payroll system to issue herself unauthorized compensation using the names of employees who no longer worked for the company.

Prosecutors said MI5 discovered aspects of Peterson-Janovc’s fraud and terminated her employment in 2019.

In total, Peterson-Janovec received approximately $336,000 in bogus vendor payments and approximately $20,000 in fraudulently issued payroll submissions using the identities of other people.

Authorities said Peterson-Janovec then lied about her work experience to get a bookkeeping job with a family-owned construction company in Rochester, identified as Company 3. She was eventually promoted to its general manager.

She used her position to access Company 3’s QuickBooks to issue herself numerous payments, and she did so in a manner that made the payments appear as if they were going to Company 3 vendors. This netted Peterson-Janovec another $350,000 in as little as 18 months.

Peterson-Janovec also committed tax crimes during every year of her fraud scheme, which led to over $160,000 in unpaid taxes.

She was found guilty on 13 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, three counts of aggravated identity theft, three counts of making and subscribing a false tax return, and three counts of failure to file individual tax returns.

She will be sentenced at a later date.

BRRRR: The 15 Coldest Cities in America

You live here. You know how cold it gets, and by now you're probably used to it, but you should probably brace yourself because the National Weather Service issued a La Niña advisory last month and said, "La Niña winters in the southern tier of the US tend to be warmer and drier, while the northern tier and Canada tend to be even colder.

The list below is from Niche. They put together their list of the coldest cities in the county by looking at which ones had "the coldest average low temperatures during the winter months." Keep scrolling to see the 15 coldest cities in the United States.

Source: Kenyon Woman Convicted For $700,000 Employer Embezzlement and Tax Fraud Scheme

Filed Under: Kenyon

Categories: Local News