Jodi Lathrop, 53, of Bristol pleaded guilty Monday, December 10 in federal court in Burlington to charges of wire fraud and tax evasion, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III released Lathrop on conditions pending sentencing, which is set for April 1, 2024.
On January 24, the United States Attorney filed an indictment charging Lathrop with committing a scheme to embezzle from Lathrop Forest Products, a wood-logging and wood-chipping company based in Bristol and co-owned by Lathrop’s husband and Lathrop’s brother-in-law. Lathrop served as bookkeeper, handling accounts receivable, accounts payable, and payroll.
Lathrop’s scheme included Lathrop writing unauthorized checks from the bank accounts to pay her personal credit card bills and Lathrop making unauthorized charges on credit cards to pay her personal expenses.
For example, in July 2018, Lathrop charged $3,466 worth of household appliances on a business credit card, knowing the charge was unauthorized, and had the appliances shipped to her personal residence for personal use.
Lathrop concealed the embezzlement in several ways. Lathrop falsely recorded the unauthorized checks in the books as checks for legitimate business expenses, wrote false notes on some checks so they appeared to be for legitimate business expenses, and caused the business to file false tax returns which falsely deducted Lathrop’s personal expenses as legitimate business expenses.
Lathrop also filed false personal tax returns for each of the years from 2014 to 2019. Lathrop failed to report as income the embezzled funds, and therefore evaded paying personal income taxes that she owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
The indictment alleges that Lathrop embezzled more than $400,000 from the business over the course of the scheme and evaded personal income taxes of about $141,000. The actual amount of Lathrop’s embezzlement and evaded taxes will be determined by the U.S. District Court at sentencing.
As part of her plea agreement, Lathrop agreed to sell approximately 270.5 acres of land she owns and to use the proceeds to pay any restitution she is ordered to pay to the victims of her crimes.
Lathrop faces up to 20 years of imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release.