A husband and wife from Chillicothe face charges of filing false income tax returns in connection with what prosecutors call a nearly four million dollar embezzlement from the woman’s employer.
U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson says a grand jury returned an indictment listing 21 criminal counts against Donna M. Preszler, 60, and her husband Terrance W. Preszler, 63.
This superseding indictment replaces a federal indictment that was returned last June
It adds the husband as a defendant in one count of making a false income tax return.
Donna Preszler was employed at Burdg, Dunham & Associates from 2001 until June 2012, working as an accounting manager since 2004. BDA is a general contractor specializing in retail construction of malls, strip centers, family life centers, and other stand-alone projects. BDA serves customers in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada, primarily building for national retail organizations.
The indictment alleges that Preszler embezzled $3,912,000 in a wire fraud scheme from June 30, 2006 through June 15, 2012. Preszler allegedly used her employer’s accounting software to create payroll data files that contained unauthorized false and fictitious payments to her bank accounts and others.
The new indictment alleges that Donna and Terrance Preszler failed to report the fraudulently obtained funds on their federal income tax returns for tax years 2007 through 2012. During that time, according to the indictment, the Preszlers should have paid $1,236,690 in taxes on their unreported fraudulent income from BDA.
The indictment also charges Donna Preszler with six counts of wire fraud and 14 counts of money laundering.
The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Preszler to forfeit to the government any property derived from the proceeds of the alleged violations.
According to the government, that would include a money judgment of $3,912,000, and the forfeiture two residential lots, two 14kt diamond rings, 10 vehicles, three ATVs and several bank accounts and funeral trust accounts. Dickinson says most of those items have been seized by law enforcement agents.