It has been revealed that in May authorities in Virginia arrested and charged Kristin Gardner Kelly, an employee at Sharam‘s Yoshitoshi label, with one count of embezzlement and two counts of forgery. It is alleged that Kelly stole in excess of $100,000 from Sharam, a charge she denies.
According to the Washington Post, Kelly was hired as a bookkeeper at Yoshitoshi in the fall of 2010 and in the spring of 2012 Yoshitoshi staff noticed that venders weren’t getting paid. According to Sharam’s lawyer, Timothy Davis, an internal investigation revealed that Kelly had been writing checks to herself, using the Yoshitoshi debit card and misusing company funds to pay one of her many divorce lawyers.
But the plot thickens: In June 2009, Kelly was arrested for embezzlement from Waterford Receptions, another Virgina-based company. The Post reports she pleaded guilty, and in February 2010 was given a three-year sentence, with all but six months suspended. She was allowed to be on work release while serving her six months, and also ordered to make restitution of $147,709, court records show.
Kelly, who in a separate case in Fairfax, VA is alleged to be a bigamist (she is accused of being married to two men at at the same time) is currently free on bond, but the judge in the Waterford case sent her back in jail for 10 days in September for failing to report to her probation officer, and she is still facing more than two years of prison time in that case.
Sharam, who didn’t grant the paper an interview, has reportedly made amends with outstanding debtors.
Kelly is due back in court of December.
We’ll keep you updated on this story as it develops.