Today’s Corporate Fraud Is Making Andrew Fastow Uncomfortable

With a sentence coming down circa any minute, the Koss embezzlement queen is probably starting to freak just a tad.

Accordingly, her attorneys are pulling out all the stops. The defense is now claiming that Sue’s assistant, Julie Mulvaney was “an enabler” and kept SS from having a nervous breakdown when things got dicey around the scam:

•In May of each year — a few weeks prior to scheduled visits from Koss outside auditors — Sachdeva would review the cash in the company’s ledgers, compare it with the cash in the company’s bank accounts and then determine the difference between the two. Sachdeva would presume the shortfall was equal to her theft of company funds.

“She would then call Julie Mulvaney into her office in a panic, and tell Mulvaney that cash was ‘off’ by a certain amount,” the memo states. “Mulvaney would respond by saying ‘let me look at everything and get back to you and don’t worry.’”

Mulvaney would then alter figures in the ledgers, the memo states.

•Sachdeva’s attorneys contend Mulvaney worked independently and without direct supervision “and only minimally shared her methods with Sachdeva.”

“Sachdeva, who was preoccupied with the fear of being discovered and too emotionally distraught to manage the fraudulent entries, would constantly ask Mulvaney at work if everything had been ‘fixed,’ and would frantically call Mulvaney at home, sometimes late at night, to see if the cash had been reconciled,” the memo states.

Sue was so emotionally distraught throughout the ordeal that she wandered into Valentina Boutique on a number of occasions and spent $1.4 million. Yeah, that makes sense.

UPDATE, circa 5:30 pm: From Milwaukee public radio, Suz gets 11 years.