Coast woman sentenced for embezzling over $300,000 from Biloxi employer
A Coast woman who supported her shopping addiction by embezzling $303,000 from her employer, a Biloxi construction company, will serve five years on probation for her crime.
Judge Larry Bourgeois sentenced Elizabeth Rose “Beth” O’Neil, 37, to 20 years in prison, but suspended the prison sentence and sentenced her to probation. He also ordered to make full restitution.
O’Neil pleaded guilty to a felony charge of embezzlement in January 2020. At her plea hearing, she told the judge she stole between $1,400 to $1,600 a week from 2012-17 while she worked as a bookkeeper at J.O. Collins Contractor Inc.
A company audit revealed the theft.
Afterward, O’Neil admitted stealing the money to the company’s owner, and then asked if she could keep her job, but her employer declined the request.
O’Neil said she was able to disguise what she was doing by writing off the payments as a business expense, but then deposited the money into her personal account.
O’Neil faced up to 20 years in prison, but the District Attorney’s Office recommended she serve five years under house arrest with the approval of the victims.
So far, her attorney, Don Rafferty, said Monday, that O’Neil has paid a $189,525 of what she owes in restitution. O’Neil had said during her plea hearing that she planned to sell some family land to be able to make a significant payment to her former employer.
When she pleaded guilty to the charge in 2020, she had already gotten a job in Alabama, her attorney said.
O’Neil is expected to pay $300 a month in restitution until full restitution is made.
The Harrison County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case.
