People often think of embezzlement in a rather direct form, such as a financial officer who accesses a company’s accounts and transfers money to their own account. Another example could be someone who is charged with taking the earnings from a local deli to the bank at the end of the week, but they skim some of the cash off the top, alter the documentation, and deposit the lower amount.
These things can happen, but it is important to remember that company checks could also be involved. How could the use of checks lead to embezzlement allegations?
Writing checks in your own name
One issue that could come up is if you are accused of altering the payee listed on a check, changing it to your own name. For instance, you are supposed to deliver a check to a parts and materials supplier, but you simply change the name to your own, cash the check, and then fail to pay the supplier.
In some cases, though, another party is not even involved. After all, the above example would lead to a quick protest from the supplier, who never got paid, exposing the embezzlement.
But there are cases where people write checks to themselves or cash company checks and simply pocket the money. In some cases, they will alter the books so that everything appears to match. If you work as the financial officer of a business, you may have access to all of this documentation, so you could cash a check in your own name and construct the books in such a way that no one will notice the withdrawal ever occurred.
Defense options
Of course, checks can lead to allegations when you did not do anything wrong. Perhaps you were supposed to cash a check to use the money for a certain purpose, but now you are being accused of pocketing the money when you did no such thing. Maybe the records were altered by someone else, or perhaps those records are just very complex, so someone made an oversight or a mistake. If you are facing allegations of embezzlement, be sure you understand your legal defense options.
